LIBRARY 

OF    THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 
ClafS 


THEOLOGY   AND    THE    SOCIAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS 


o. 


THEOLOGY  AND  THE 
SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 


A    STUDY    OF    THE    RELATIONS    OF    THE 
SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS    TO    THEOLOGY 


BY 

HENRY    CHURCHILL    KING 

PROFESSOR    OF    THEOLOGY    AND    PHILOSOPHY 
IN    OBERLIN    COLLEGE 


Sorfc: 

THE     MACMILLAN     COMPANY 

LONDON  :     MACMILLAN    &    CO.,    LTD. 
I9O2 

AM    rights    reserved 


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COPYRIGHT,   1902 
BY    THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

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OF     THE      YEAR      1901 

IN      RECOGNITION     OF     THEIR     INTEREST     IN     THE     LECTURES 
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PREFACE 

THERE  is  no  attempt  in  this  book  to  pre- 
sent a  complete  system  of  theology,  though 
much  of  such  a  system  is  passed  in  review, 
but  only  to  study  a  special  phase  of  theo- 
logical thinking.  The  precise  theme  of 
the  book  is  the  relations  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness to  theology.  This  is  the  subject 
upon  which  the  writer  was  asked  to  lecture 
at  the  Harvard  Summer  School  of  Theology 
of  1901 ;  and  the  book  has  grown  out  of 
the  lectures  there  given.  In  preparing  the 
book  for  the  press,  however,  the  lecture 
form  has  been  entirely  abandoned,  and  con- 
siderable material  added. 

The  importance  of  the  theme  seems  to 
justify  a  somewhat  thorough -going  treat- 
ment. If  one  believes  at  all  in  the  presence 
of  God  in  history — and  the  Christian  can 
have  no  doubt  here — he  must  be  profoundly 


Vlll  PREFACE 


interested  in  such  a  phenomenon  as  the 
steady  growth  of  the  social  consciousness. 
Hardly  any  inner  characteristic  of  our  time 
has  a  stronger  historical  justification  than 
that  consciousness ;  and  it  has  carried  the 
reason  and  conscience  of  the  men  of  this 
generation  in  rare  degree.  Having  its  own 
comparatively  independent  development,  and 
yet  making  an  ethical  demand  that  is  thor- 
oughly Christian,  it  furnishes  an  almost 
ideal  standpoint  from  which  to  review  our 
theological  statements,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
a  valuable  test  of  their  really  Christian 
quality. 

In  attempting,  then,  a  careful  study  of 
the  relations  of  the  social  consciousness  to 
theology,  this  book  aims,  first,  definitely  to 
get  at  the  real  meaning  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness as  the  theologian  must  view  it, 
and  so  to  bring  clearly  into  mind  the  un- 
conscious assumptions  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness itself;  and  then  to  trace  out  the 
influence  of  the  social  consciousness  upon 
the  conception  of  religion,  and  upon  theo- 


PREFACE  IX 

logical  doctrine.  The  larger  portion  of 
the  book  is  naturally  given  to  the  influence 
upon  theological  doctrine ;  and  to  make  the 
discussion  here  as  pointed  as  possible,  the 
different  elements  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness are  considered  separately. 

It  should  be  noted,  however,  that  the  ques- 
tion raised  is  not  the  historical  one,  How,  as 
a  matter  of  fact,  has  the  social  consciousness 
modified  the  conception  of  religion  or  the 
statement  of  theological  doctrine  ?  but  the 
theoretical  one,  How  should  the  social  con- 
sciousness naturally  affect  religion  and  doc- 
trine? In  this  sense,  the  result  might  be 
called,  in  President  Hyde's  phrase,  a  "social 
theology";  but,  as  I  believe  that  the  social 
consciousness  is  at  bottom  only  a  true  sense 
of  the  fully  personal,  I  prefer  myself  to  think 
of  the  present  book  as  only  carrying  out  in 
more  detail  the  contention  of  my  Reconstruc- 
tion in  Theology — that  theology  should  aim  at 
a  restatement  of  doctrine  in  strictly  personal 
terms.  So  conceived,  in  spite  of  its  casual 
origin,  this  book  follows  very  naturally  upon 


PREFACE 


the  previous  book.  Some  of  the  same  topics 
necessarily  recur  here ;  and  references  to 
the  Reconstruction  have  been  freely  made,  in 
order  to  avoid  all  unnecessary  repetition. 

That  this  social  sense  of  the  fully  personal 
has  finally  a  real  and  definite  contribution 
to  make  to  theology,  I  cannot  doubt.  I 
can  only  hope  that  the  present  discussion 
may  be  found  at  least  suggestive,  particularly 
in  the  analysis  of  the  social  consciousness, 
and  in  the  treatment  of  mysticism  and  of 
the  ethical  in  religion,  as  well  as  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  special  influence  of  the 
elements  of  the  social  consciousness  upon 
the  restatement  of  doctrine.  Of  the  doc- 
trinal applications,  the  application  to  the 
problem  of  redemption  may  be  considered, 
perhaps,  of  most  significance. 

HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING. 

OBERLIN  COLLEGE,  June,  1902. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION 


PAGE 

THE  THEME  .  i 


THE    REAL    MEANING    OF    THE    SOCIAL    CON- 
SCIOUSNESS   FOR    THEOLOGY 

INTRODUCTION 
THE  POINT  OF  VIEW  OF  THE  THEOLOGIAN 5 

CHAPTER   I 

THE  DEFINITION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 9 

I.  The  Sense  of  the  Like-Mindedness  of  Men 9 

II.  The  Sense  of  the  Mutual  Influence  of  Men n 

1.  Contributing  Lines  of  Thought u 

2.  The  Threefold  Form  of  the  Conviction 13 

III.  The  Sense  of  the  Value  and  Sacredness  of  the  Person    .       16 

IV.  The  Sense  of  Obligation 18 

V.  The  Sense  of  Love 20 

CHAPTER   II 

THE   INADEQUACY  OF  THE  ANALOGY  OF  THE  ORGANISM   AS  AN 

EXPRESSION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 23 

I.  The  Value  of  the  Analogy 23 

(xi) 


Xll  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

II.  The  Inevitable  Inadequacy  of  the  Analogy 24 

1.  It  Comes  from  the   Sub-personal  World 24 

2.  Access  to  Reality,  Only  Through  Ourselves  ....  24 

3.  Mistaken  Passion  for  Construing  Everything     ...  25 
III.  The    Analogy    Tested    by  the    Definition    of  the    Social 

Consciousness 27 

CHAPTER   III 

THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  FACTS  OF  WHICH  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUS- 
NESS is  THE  REFLECTION,  IF  IDEAL  INTERESTS   ARE  TO 

BE  SUPREME 29 

I.  The  Question 29 

II.  Otherwise,  No  Moral  World  at  all 30 

1.  The  Prerequisites  of  a  Moral  World       30 

(1)  A  Sphere  of  Law 30 

(2)  Ethical  Freedom 30 

(3)  Some  Power  of  Accomplishment 31 

(4)  Members  One  of  Another 32 

2.  The    Ideal  World  Requires,  thus,  the  Facts  of  the 

Social  Consciousness 32 

CHAPTER   IV 

THE    ULTIMATE   EXPLANATION    AND   GROUND  OF    THE   SOCIAL 

CONSCIOUSNESS 35 

I.  How   can    it   be,   Metaphysically,  that  we   do   Influence 

One  Another? 35 

1.  Not  Due  to  the  Physical  Fact  of  Race-Connection  .  36 

2.  We   are   not  to   Over  -  Emphasize   the   Principle   of 

Heredity 37 

3.  Not  Due  to  a  Mystical  Solidarity 39 

4.  Grounded  in  the  Immanence  of  God 40 


CONTENTS  Xlll 

PAGE 

II.  What  is  Required  for  the  Final   Positive  Justification  of 

the  Social  Consciousness,  as  Ethical  ?    .    .    .    .      44 

1.  Must  be  Grounded  in  the  Supporting  Will  of  God  .      44 

2.  God's  Sharing  in  our  Life 48 

3.  The  Consequent  Transfiguration  of  the  Social  Con- 

sciousness        49 

THE   INFLUENCE    OF  THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 
UPON    THE    CONCEPTION    OF    RELIGION 

INTRODUCTION 53 

CHAPTER  V 

THE  OPPOSITION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS  TO  THE  FALSELY 

MYSTICAL 55 

I.  What  is  the  Falsely  Mystical? 55 

1.  Nash's  Definition 55 

2.  Herrmann's  Definition 56 

II.  The  Objections  of  the  Social  Consciousness  to  the  Falsely 

Mystical 57 

1.  Unethical 58 

2.  Does  not  Give  a  Really  Personal  God 58 

3.  Belittles  the  Personal  in  Man 59 

4.  Leaves  the  Historically,  Concretely  Christian  ....  62 

CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EMPHASIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS  UPON  THE  PER- 
SONAL  RELATION    IN    RELIGION,   AND    so    UPON    THE 

TRULY  MYSTICAL 66 

I.  The  Social  Consciousness  Tends  Positively  to  Emphasize 

the  Personal  Relation  in  Religion 66 

i.  Emphasizes  Everywhere  the  Personal 66 


XIV  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

2.  Requires   the    Laws   of   a  Deepening    Friendship  in 

Religion 67 

3.  Requires  the    Ideal  Conditions  of   the    Richest   Life 

in  Religion 68 

II.  The  Social  Consciousness  thus  Keeps  the  Truly  Mystical.  70 

1.  The  Justifiable  and  Unjustifiable  Elements  in  Mysti- 

cism       71 

(1)  Emotion,  the  Test 71 

(2)  Subjective  Tendency 72 

(3)  Underestimating  the  Historical 72 

(4)  Tendency  toward  Vagueness 73 

(5)  Tendency  toward  Pantheism 73 

(6)  Tendency  to  Extravagant  Symbolism    ....  76 

2.  The  Protest  in  Favor  of  the  Whole  Man 78 

3.  The  Self-Controlled  Recognition  of  Emotion    ...  82 

CHAPTER  VII 

THE  THOROUGH  ETHICIZING  OF  RELIGION 86 

I.  The  Pressure  of  the  Problem 86 

II.  The  Statement  of  the  Problem 87 

III.  The  Answer 89 

1.  Involved  in  Relation  to  Christ 89 

2.  The  Divine  Will  Felt  in  the  Ethical  Command  .    .  90 

3.  Involved  in  the  Nature  of  God's  Gifts 91 

4.  Communion  with  God,  Through  Harmony  with  His 

Ethical  Will 92 

5.  The  Vision  of  God  for  the  Pure  in  Heart    ....  92 

6.  Sharing  the  Life  of  God 93 

7.  Christ,  as  Satisfying  Our  Highest  Claims  on  Life  .    .  94 

8.  The  Vision   of   the   Riches   of    the    Life    of   Christ, 

Ethically  Conditioned 96 

9.  The  Moral  Law,  as  a  Revelation  of  the  Love  of  God  98 


CONTENTS  XV 

CHAPTER   VIII 

PAGE 

THE  EMPHASIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS  UPON  THE   HIS- 
TORICALLY CHRISTIAN 102 

I.  The  Social  Consciousness  Needs  Historical  Justification  .  102 

II.  Christianity's  Response  to  this  Need 103 

THE    INFLUENCE    OF  THE    SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 
UPON    THEOLOGICAL    DOCTRINE 

CHAPTER  IX 

GENERAL  RESULTS 105 

I.  The  Conception  of  Theology  in  Personal  Terms    .    .    .     106 
II.  The  Fatherhood  of   God,  as  the    Determining   Principle 

in  Theology .    109 

III.  Christ's  Own  Social  Emphases in 

IV.  The  Reflection  in  Theology  of  the  Changes  in  the  Con- 

ception of  Religion 113 

CHAPTER  X 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  DEEPENING  SENSE  OF  THE   LIKE-MIND 

EDNESS  OF  MEN  UPON  THEOLOGY 115 

I.  No  Prime  Favorites  with  God 116 

II.  The   Great   Universal  Qualities  and   Interests,   the  Most 

Valuable     .    .  117 

HI.  Essential  Likeness  Under  very  Diverse  Forms 121 

IV.  As  Applied  to  the  Question  of  Immortality 124 

V.  Consequent  Larger  Sympathy  with  Men,   Faith  in  Men, 

and  Hope  for  Men 127 

VI.  Judgment  According  to  Light,  and  the  Moral  Reality  of 

the  Future  Life 132 


XVI  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  XI 

PAGE 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  DEEPENING  SENSE  OF  THE  MUTUAL  IN- 
FLUENCE OF  MEN  UPON  THEOLOGY 136 

I.  The  Real  Unity  of  the  Race 136 

II.  Deepening  the  Sense  of  Sin 139 

III.  Mutual   Influence  for  Good   in  the  Attainment  of  Char- 

acter     145 

1.  Application  to  the  Problem  of  Redemption   ....     147 

2.  The  Consequent  Ethical  and  Spiritual   Meaning  of 

Substitution  and  Propitiation 150 

IV.  Mutual  Influence  for  Good  in  our  Personal  Relation  to 

God 160 

1.  In  Coming  into  the  Kingdom 160 

2.  In  Fellowship  within  the  Kingdom 162 

3.  In  Intercessory  Prayer 164 

V.  Mutual  Influence  for  Good  in  Confessions  of  Faith     .    .  167 

1.  Complete    Uniformity   of  Belief  and   Statement  Im- 

possible   169 

2.  Complete  Uniformity   of  Belief  and   Statement  Un- 

desirable  171 

VI.  The    Consequent    Importance    of    the    Doctrine    of    the 

Church 177 

CHAPTER    XII 

THE  INFLUENCE  OF  THE  DEEPENING  SENSE  OF  THE  VALUE  AND 

SACREDNESS  OF  THE  PERSON  UPON  THEOLOGY 179. 

I.  The  Recognition  of  the  Personal  in  Man 180 

1.  Man's  Personal  Separateness  from  God      .        .        .180 

2.  Emphasis  upon  Man's  Moral  Initiative 181 

3.  Man,  a  Child  of  God 183 


CONTENTS  XV11 

PAGE 

II.  The  Recognition  of  the  Personal  in  Christ 184 

1.  Christ,  a  Personal  Revelation  of  God      184 

2.  Emphasizing  the  Moral  and  Spiritual  in  Asserting 

the  Supremacy  of  Christ 185 

3.  The  Moral  and  Spiritual  Grounds  of  the  Supremacy 

of  Christ 188 

(1)  The  Greatest  in  the  Greatest  Sphere  188 

(2)  The  Sinless  and  Impenitent  One    .  .192 

(3)  Consciously  Rises  to  the  Highest  Ideal    ...  194 

(4)  Realizes  the  Character  of  God 195 

(5)  Consciously  Able  to  Redeem  All  Men     ...  196 

(6)  Complete     Normality    under    this    Transcen- 

dent    God  -  Consciousness     and     Sense     of 

Mission 197 

(7)  The  Only  Person  Who  can  call  out  Absolute 

Trust 198 

(8)  The  One,  in  Whom  God  Certainly  Finds  Us  .  199 

(9)  The  Ideal  Realized 200 

4.  Christ's  Double  Uniqueness 201 

5.  The  Increasing  Sense  of  Our  Kinship  with  Christ, 

and  of  His  Reality 205 

III.  The  Recognition  of  the  Personal  in  God 207 

1.  The   Steady  Carrying  Through  of  the    Completely 

Personal  in  the  Conception  of  God.     Guarding 

the  Conception 208 

2.  God  is  Always  the  Completely  Personal  God       .    .  212 

(1)  Consequent     Relation     of     God     to    "Eternal 

Truths" 212 

(2)  Eternal  Creation 214 

(3)  The  Unity  and  Unchangeableness  of  God  .    .  216 

(4)  The    Limitations    of   the    Conception    of    Im- 

manence       217 


XV111  CONTENTS 

PAGE 

3.  Deepening  the  Thought  of  the  Fatherhood  of  God  .  218 

(1)  History,  no  Mere  Natural  Process 218 

(2)  God,  the  Great  Servant 219 

(3)  No  Divine  Arbitrariness 220 

(4)  The  Passibility  of  God 221 

4.  As  to  the  Doctrine  of  a   Social  Trinity 222 

5.  Preeminent  Reverence  for  Personality,  Characterizing 

all  God's  Relations  with  Men 226 

(1)  Reflected  in  Christ 226 

(2)  In  Creation 230 

(3)  In  Providence 232 

(4)  In  Our  Personal  Religious  Life 233 

(5)  In  the  Judgment 237 

(6)  In  the  Future  Life 240 


THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS 


INTRODUCTION 

THEME 


No  theologian  can  be  excused  to-day  from 
a  careful  study  of  the  relations  of  theology 
and  the  social  consciousness.  Whether  this 
study  becomes  a  formal  investigation  or  not, 
the  social  consciousness  is  so  deep  and  signifi- 
cant a  phenomenon  in  the  ethical  life  of  our 
time,  that  it  cannot  be  ignored  by  the  theo- 
logian who  means  to  bring  his  message  to 
men  really  home.  This  book  is  written  in 
the  conviction  that,  while  men  are  thus 
moved  as  never  before  by  a  deep  sense  of 
mutual  influence  and  obligation,  they  have 
also  as  deep  and  genuine  an  interest  as  ever 
in  the  really  greatest  questions  of  religion 
and  theology.  Interests  so  significant  and  so 
akin  cannot  long  remain  isolated  in  the  mind. 
They  are  certain  soon  profoundly  to  influence 

A  (0 


2  THEOLOGY    AND     THE      SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

each  other.  And  this  mutual  influence  of 
theology  and  the  social  consciousness  form 
the  theme  of  this  book. 

Two  questions  are  naturally  involved  in 
this  theme.  First:  Has  theology  given 
any  help,  or  has  it  any  help  to  give,  to  the 
social  consciousness?  —  the  question  of  the 
first  division  of  the  book.  Second  :  Has  the 
social  consciousness  made  any  contribution, 
or  has  it  any  contribution  to  make,  to  theol- 
ogy?—  the  question  of  the  second  and  third 
divisions.  That  is  to  say:  On  the  one  hand, 
Have  the  great  facts  which  theology  studies 
any  help  to  give  to  the  man  who  faces  the 
problem  of  social  progress  —  of  the  steady 
elevation  of  the  race?  On  the  other  hand, 
Has  the  great  fact  of  the  immensely  quick- 
ened social  consciousness  of  our  time,  with 
all  that  it  means,  any  help  to  give  to  the 
theologian  in  his  attempt  to  bring  the  great 
Christian  truths  really  home  to  men,  to  make 
them  more  real,  more  rational,  more  vital? 

Or  again :  On  the  one  hand,  do  theological 
doctrines  —  the  most  adequate  statements  we 
can  make  of  the  great  Christian  truths — best 
explain  and  best  ground  the  social  conscious- 
ness, so  as  best  to  bring  our  entire  thought 
in  this  sphere  of  the  social  into  unity?  Is 


THE     THEME  3 

the  Christian  truth  so  great  that  it  not  only 
includes  all  that  is  true  in  this  new  social- 
consciousness — is  fully  able  to  take  it  up  into 
itself  and  to  make  it  feel  at  home  there  —  but 
also,  so  great  that  it  alone  can  give  the  social 
consciousness  its  fullest  meaning,  alone  enable 
it  to  understand  itself,  and  alone  furnish  it 
adequate  motive  and  power?  Is  the  social 
consciousness,  in  truth,  only  a  disguised  state- 
ment of  Christian  convictions,  and  does  it 
really  require  the  Christian  religion  and  its 
thoughtful  expression  to  complete  itself? 
Must  the  social  consciousness  say,  when  it 
comes  to  full  self-knowledge, —  I  am  myself 
an  unmeaning  and  unjustified  by-product,  if 
there  is  not  a  God  in  the  full  Christian  sense  ? 
and,  so  saying,  confirm  again  the  great  Chris- 
tian truths  ?  This  is  the  question  of  the  first 
division. 

On  the  other  hand,  since  the  task  of  any 
given  theologian  is  necessarily  temporary,  and 
since  any  marked  modification  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  men  will  inevitably  demand 
some  restatement  of  theological  doctrine,  the 
question  here  becomes  —  To  what  changed 
points  of  view  in  religion  and  theology,  to 
what  restatements  of  doctrine,  and  so  to  what 
truer  appreciation  of  Christian  truth,  does 


4-  THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  new  social  consciousness  naturally  lead  ? 
How  do  the  affirmations  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness, as  the  outcome  of  a  careful,  in- 
ductive study  of  the  social  evolution  of  the 
race,  affect  our  theological  statements?  This 
is  the  question  of  the  second  and  third  divi- 
sions of  the  book. 

Our  discussion  must  of  course  assume  and 
build  on  the  conclusions  of  sociology,  and 
of  New  Testament  theology,  especially  the 
conclusions  concerning  the  social  teaching 
of  Jesus. 


THE  REAL  MEANING  OF  THE  SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS  FOR  THEOLOGY 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  POINT   OF  VIEW  OF   THE    THEOLOGIAN 

FIRST,  then,  what  is  the  real  meaning  of 
the  social  consciousness,  as  the  theologian 
must  view  it?  The  answer  to  this  question 
involves  a  preliminary  one:  What  is  the 
point  of  view  of  the  theologian  in  any  in- 
vestigation? One  can  only  give  his  own 
answer. 

First  of  all,  the  theologian,  as  such,  is  an 
interpreter,  not  a  tracer  of  causal  connections. 
He  builds  everywhere  upon  the  scientific  in- 
vestigator, and  takes  from  him  the  statement 
of  facts  and  processes.  With  these  he  has 
primarily  nothing  to  do.  With  reference  to 
the  social  consciousness,  therefore,  he  does 
not  attempt  to  do  over  again  the  work  of 
the  sociologist;  he  asks  only,  What  does  the 
social  consciousness,  in  the  light  of  the  whole 

(5) 


6  THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  life  and  thought,  mean ;  not,  How  did  it 
come  about? 

The  theologian,  too,  is  a  believer  in  the 
supremacy  of  spiritual  interests;  this  is  his  cen- 
tral contention.  He  affirms  strenuously,  with 
the  scientific  worker,  the  place  and  value  of 
the  mechanical;  but  he  is  certain  that  the 
mechanical  can  understand  itself  even,  only 
as  it  is  seen  to  be  simple  means,  and  thus 
clearly  subordinate  in  significance.  His  prob- 
lem is,  therefore,  everywhere,  that  of  ideal 
interpretation,  not  of  mechanical  explanation. 
But,  while  he  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
scientific  tracing  of  immediate  causal  con- 
nections, he  recognizes  causality  itself  as  re- 
quiring an  ultimate  explanation,  that  cannot 
be  mechanically  given.  The  theologian  must 
be  in  this,  then,  an  ideal  interpreter,  and  an 
inquirer  after  the  ultimate  cause. 

The  theologian  assumes,  moreover,  the 
legitimacy  and  value  of  the  fact  of  religion] 
for  theology  is  simply  the  thoughtful,  com- 
prehensive, and  unified  expression  of  what 
religion  means  to  us.  The  meaning  of  the 
social  consciousness  to  the  theologian  in- 
volves, therefore,  at  once  the  question  of  its 
relation  to  religious  conviction. 

The  point  of  view  of  the  Christian  theo- 


THE    VIEW    OF    THE     THEOLOGIAN  7 

logian  involves,  besides,  the  reality  of  the 
personal  God  in  personal  relation  to  persons. 
Theology  is  in  earnest  in  its  thought  of  God, 
and  knows  that  God  is  everywhere  to  be 
taken  into  account;  that,  if  there  is  a  God 
at  all,  he  is  not  to  be  exiled  into  some  cor- 
ner of  his  universe,  but  is  intimately  con- 
cerned in  all,  is  at  the  very  heart  of  all ;  and 
that,  therefore,  it  is  not  a  matter  of  merely 
curious  interest  or  of  subsidiary  inquiry, 
whether  we  are  to  look  at  our  questions 
with  God  in  mind. 

Finally,  the  Christian  theologian  tries  every- 
where to  make  his  point  of  view  the  point 
of  view  of  Christ.  The  theology,  upon  which 
he  ultimately  stakes  his  all,  is  Christ's  theol- 
ogy. He  knows  that  there  is  much  con- 
cerning which  he  cannot  refuse  to  think, 
but  upon  which  Christ  has  not  expressed 
himself  either  explicitly  or  by  clear  infer- 
ence ;  but  in  all  this  unavoidable  supple- 
mentary thinking  he  aims  to  be  absolutely 
loyal  to  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

From  this  point  of  view  of  the  Christian 
theologian,  now,  what  does  the  social  con- 
sciousness mean  ?  The  answer  may  be  given 
under  four  heads:  (i)  the  definition  of  the 
social  consciousness;  (2)  the  inadequacy  of 


8  THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  analogy  of  the  organism,  as  an  expression 
of  the  social  consciousness ;  (3)  the  necessity 
of  the  facts,  of  which  the  social  conscious- 
ness is  the  reflection,  if  ideal  interests  are 
to  be  supreme ;  (4)  the  ultimate  explanation 
and  ground  of  the  social  consciousness. 

These  four  topics  form  the  subjects  of 
the  four  chapters  of  the  first  division  of  our 
inquiry. 


CHAPTER    I 
THE   DEFINITION   OF   THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS 

THE  simplest  and  probably  the  most  accu- 
rate single  expression  we  can  give  to  the 
social  consciousness,  is  to  say  that  it  is  a 
growing  sense  of  the  real  brotherhood  of 
men.  But  five  elements  seem  plainly  in- 
volved in  this,  and  may  be  profitably  sepa- 
rated in  our  thought,  if  that  is  to  be  clear 
and  definite:  —  a  deepening  sense  (i)  of  the 
likeness  or  like-mindedness  of  men,  (2)  of 
their  mutual  influence,  (3)  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person,  (4)  of  mutual  obli- 
gation, and  (5)  of  love. 

I.     THE    SENSE   OF   THE   LIKE-MINDEDNESS   OF  MEN1 

If  a  society  is  "a  group  of  like-minded 
individuals,"  if  the  "all -essential"  requisites 
for  cooperation  are  "like-mindedness  and 
consciousness  of  kind,"  as  Giddings  tells  us, 
then  certainly  a  prime  element  in  the  social 
consciousness  is  likeness  and  the  sense  of 

1  Cf .  Giddings,  Elements  of  Sociology,  pp.  6,  10,  65,  66,  77. 
(9) 


10         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

it  —  a  growing  sense  of  the  mental  and  moral 
resemblance  and  "  potential  resemblance " 
of  all  men,  and  of  all  classes  of  men,  though 
not  equality  of  powers. 

"Equality  of  need"  among  men,  too,1  to 
which  sociology  comes  as  one  of  its  surest 
conclusions,  implies  a  common  capacity,  even 
if  in  varying  degrees,  to  enter  into  the  most 
fundamental  interests  of  life,  and  so  points 
unmistakably  to  the  essential  likeness  of  men 
in  the  most  important  things. 

So,  too,  sociology's  unquestioning  asser- 
tion that  both  smaller  and  larger  groups  of 
men  constantly  tend  •  toward  unity,  assumes 
potential  resemblance. 

And  the  uniform  experience  and  prescrip- 
tion of  social  workers,  that  really  knowing 
"how  the  other  half  lives"  brings  increasing 
sympathy,  also  affirm  the  fundamental  like- 
ness of  men.  Every  painstaking  investigation 
of  a  social  question  comes  out  at  some  point 
or  other  with  a  fresh  discovery  of  a  pre- 
viously hidden,  underlying  resemblance  be- 
tween classes  of  men. 

From  the  careful,  inductive  study  of  social 
evolution,  too,  the  men  of  our  day  see,  as  no 
other  generation  has  seen,  that  the  great  force 

1  Cf .  Giddings,  Op.  cit.t  p.  324. 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  II 

always  and  everywhere  at  work  in  that  evo- 
lution has  been  likeness  and  the  conscious- 
ness of  it. 

For  all  these  reasons,  this  generation  be- 
lieves, as  men  never  believed  before,  in  the 
essential  like-mindedness  of  men;  and  this 
deepening  sense  of  the  like-mindedness  of 
men  is  certainly  one  element  in  the  modern 
social  consciousness. 

II.     THE  SENSE  OF  THE  MUTUAL  INFLUENCE  OF  MEN 

A  second  element  in  the  social  conscious- 
ness, and,  perhaps,  that  which  has  most  of 
all  characterized  it  through  the  larger  period 
of  its  growth,  is  the  strong  sense  of  the 
mutual  influence  of  men — that  we  are  all 
"members  one  of  another." 

I.  Contributing  Lines  of  Thought. — It  is 
worth  seeing  how  firm-ly  planted  the  idea 
is.  Several  lines  of  thought  have  united  to 
induce  men  to  emphasize  —  perhaps  even  to 
over -emphasize  —  this  way  of  thinking  of 
society.  The  influence  of  natural  science, 
in  the  first  place,  has  been  inevitably  in  this 
direction.  Its  root  idea  of  the  universality 
of  law  forces  upon  one  the  thought  of  a 
world  which  is  a  coherent  whole,  a  unity  with 


12         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

universal  forces  in  it,  in  which  every  part  is 
inextricably  connected  with  every  other.  So, 
too,  the  acceptance  of  the  theory  of  evo- 
lution has  led  science  to  regard  the  whole 
history  of  the  physical  universe  as  an  organic 
growth. 

Psychology,  also,  with  its  present-day  em- 
phasis, in  Baldwin  and  Royce,  upon  the  con- 
stant presence  and  fundamental  character  of 
imitation,  and  its  insistence  upon  the  still 
more  fundamental  impulsiveness  of  conscious- 
ness which  Dewey  believes  underlies  imi- 
tation,1 is  really  proclaiming  exactly  this  ele- 
ment of  the  social  consciousness.  And  the 
whole  assertion  by  the  later  psychology  of 
the  unity  of  man -mind  and  body,  and  of 
the  complex  intertwining  of  all  the  functions 
of  the  mind,  is  in  closest  harmony  with  a 
similar  view  of  society. 

Philosophy,  too,  is  exerting  all  along  a 
half-unconscious  pressure  toward  the  thought 
of  the  organic  unity  of  society.  That  phil- 
osophy may  exist  at  all,  it  must  start  from 
the  assumption  of  a  universe,  a  real  unity  of 
truth,  and  its  problem  is  to  find  a  discerned 
unity.  It  knows  no  unrelated  being,  and, 
consequently,  whether  it  theoretically  accepts 

^ee  The  New  World,  Sept.,  1898,  p.  516. 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  13 

the  formulation  or  not,  it  must  admit  that, 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  to  be  is  to  be  in  relations. 
It  asserts  as  a  universal  fact,  what  natural 
science  and  psychology  both  affirm  in  their 
own  respective  spheres,  the  concrete  related- 
ness  of  all.  It  cannot  well  deny  the  same 
thought  when  applied  to  society.  Its  repeated 
attempts,  moreover,  to  conceive  all  as  a  devel- 
oping unity,  and  the  profound  influence  of 
the  analogy  of  the  organism  upon  its  history, 
both  further  sustain  the  organic  view  of 
society. 

Christianity,  as  well,  has  been  a  powerful 
factor  in  this  direction  from  the  beginning, 
for  it  really  first  gave  the  Idea  of  Humanity.1 

2.  The  Threefold  Form  of  the  Conviction. — 
Sustained,  now,  by  all  these  movements  in 
natural  science,  psychology,  philosophy,  and 
Christianity,  this  thought  of  the  mutual  influ- 
ence of  men  has  taken  three  forms :  that 
mutual  influence  is  inevitable,  isolation  im- 
possible; that  mutual  influence  is  desirable, 
isolation  to  be  shunned  ;  that  mutual  influence 
is  indispensable,  isolation  blighting. 

(i)  This  second  element  in  the  social 
consciousness  has  meant,  then,  in  the  first 
place,  a  growing  sense  of  the  inevitableness 

1  Cf .  Lotae,  The  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  211. 


14          THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  the  mutual  influence  of  all  men,  and  of 
all  classes  of  men ;  that  we  are  all  parts  of 
one  whole,  each  part  unavoidably  affected 
by  every  other;  that  we  are  bound  up  in  one 
bundle  of  life  with  all  men,  and  cannot  live 
an  isolated  life  if  we  would ;  that  we  do 
influence  one  another  whether  we  will  or 
not,  and  tend  unconsciously  to  draw  others 
to  our  level  and  are  ourselves  drawn  toward 
theirs;  that  we  joy  and  suffer  together 
whether  we  will  or  not,  and  grow  or  deteri- 
orate together. 

(2)  But    the    mutual    influence     of    men 
means  more  than  this :    not  only  that  we  do 
inevitably   affect    one    another   in    living    out 
our   own   life,   but   a    growing    sense    of    the 
fact   that  we    are   obviously  not   intended    to 
come    to   our   best   in   independence    of   one 
another;    that  we    are   made    on   so    large    a 
plan  that  we  cannot  come  to  our  best  alone ; 
that  we  are  evidently  made  for  personal  rela- 
tions, and  that,  therefore,  largeness  of  life  for 
ourselves  depends  on  our   entering  into  the 
life  of  others. 

(3)  But  even  more  than  this  is  true.     It 
is  not  only  that  entering  into  the  life  of  others 
is  a  help  in  my  life,  it  is  the  great  help,  the 
one  great  means,  the  indispensable,  the  essen- 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  15 

tial  condition  of  all  largeness  of  life ;  it  is 
the  very  meaning  of  life, —  life  itself.  We 
are  to  find  our  life  only  in  losing  our  life. 
Life  is  the  fulfilment  of  relations.  When 
we  try  to  run  away  from  the .  variety  and 
complexity  of  these  relations,  we  are  running 
away  from  life  itself.  The  indispensableness 
of  these  relations  to  others  is  assumed,  also, 
in  the  assertion  by  the  sociologist  of  an 
evolution  toward  a  society,  at  once  more 
and  more  complex,  and  more  and  more 
perfect. 

But  if  I  grow  in  the  growth  of  another, 
the  other  grows  in  my  growth.  If  the  only 
thing  of  value  that  I  can  finally  give  is  my- 
self, the  value  of  that  gift  depends  upon 
the  largeness  and  richness  of  the  self  given. 
For  love's  own  sake,  therefore,  I  must  grow, 
must  strive  to  bring  to  its  highest  perfection 
that  work  which  is  given  me  to  do.  A 
person  is  a  social  being  called  to  contribute 
to  the  whole,  in  the  line  of  his  own  best 
possibilities.  One's  largest  ministry  to  others 
is  to  be  rendered,  then,  through  sacred  regard 
for  one's  own  calling,  considered  as  exactly 
his  place  of  largest  service.  Or,  to  put  it 
the  other  way :  I  can  come  to  my  best  only 
in  work  so  great  and  in  associations  so  large 


l6         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

that   I   may  lose   myself   in  them   in   perfect 
objectivity. 

The  mutual  influence  of  men,  therefore,  is 
unavoidable,  is  desirable,  is  indispensable;  iso- 
lation impossible,  hindering,  blighting.  This 
is  the  true  solidarity  of  the  race,  in  which 
there  is  no  fiction,  no  hiding  in  the  incon- 
ceivable, and  no  pretense. 


III.     THE    SENSE    OF    THE    VALUE    AND    SACREDNESS 
OF   THE    PERSON 

The  third  element  in  the  social  conscious- 
ness, the  sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness 
of  the  person,  follows  naturally  from  the 
sense  of  like-mindedness  and  of  mutual  in- 
fluence, but  needs  distinct  and  emphatic 
statement. 

It  is  less  easily  separable  than  the  other 
elements  named,  and,  indeed,  may  be  made 
to  include  all  the  others,  and  does,  in  a  way, 
carry  all  with  it.  Thus  broadly  conceived, 
it  has  seemed  to  the  writer  that  —  with  the 
return  to  the  historical  Christ  —  it  might  well 
be  called  the  most  notable  moral  character- 
istic of  our  time.1  But,  though  less  easily 
and  definitely  discriminated,  one  who  knows 

1  See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  Chap.  IX,  pp,  169  ff. 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  1 7 

deeply  the  modern  social  consciousness  would 
surely  feel  that  the  very  heart  of  it  had  been 
omitted,  if  this  growing  sense  of  the  value 
and  sacredness  of  the  person  did  not  come 
to  strong  expression.  Reverence  for  person- 
ality—  the  steadily  deepening  sense  that  every 
person  has  a  value  not  to  be  measured  in 
anything  else,  and  is  in  himself  sacred  to 
God  and  man  —  this  it  is  which  marks  un- 
mistakably every  step  in  the  progress  of  the 
individual  and  of  the  race.  Without  it,  what- 
ever the  other  marks  of  civilization,  you  have 
only  tyranny  and  slavery ;  with  it,  though 
every  trace  of  luxury  and  scientific  invention 
be  lacking,  you  have  the  perfection  of  human 
relations. 

This  sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of 
the  person  not  only  characterizes  increasingly 
the  whole  social  and  moral  evolution  of  the 
race,  but  it  is  to  be  seen  in  the  clearly  con- 
scious demand  for  equality  of  rights,  and, 
especially  —  to  take  a  single  example  —  in  the 
growing  recognition  that  the  child  is  an 
individual  with  his  own  rights ;  that  he  has 
a  personality  of  his  own  of  a  sanctity  in- 
violable by  the  parent;  that  there  are  clear 
bounds  beyond  which  no  one  may  go  with- 
out personal  outrage.  The  recognition  by 


1 8          THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

psychology  of  respect  for  personality  as  one 
of  the  three  or  four  most  fundamental  con- 
ditions—  if  not  the  most  essential  of  all  —  of 
happiness,  of  character,  and  of  influence,  is 
explicit  confirmation  of  the  truth  of  this 
element  of  the  social  consciousness. 

IV.     THE    SENSE    OF    OBLIGATION 

But  the  elements  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness already  named  lead  directly  to  a  grow- 
ing sense  of  obligation.  Every  man  carries 
in  himself  his  only  possible  standard  of 
measurement  of  all  else.  A  growing  sense 
of  the  likeness  of  other  men  to  himself 
quickens  at  once,  therefore,  the  sense  of 
obligation,  and  leads  naturally  to  the  Golden 
Rule.  Recognition  of  mutual  influence,  too, 
inevitably  carries  with  it  a  deeper  sense  of 
obligation ;  for,  if  we  do  affect  others  con- 
stantly, then  we  are  manifestly  under  obliga- 
tion not  only  to  do  direct  service  to  others, 
but  so  to  order  our  own  lives  as  to  help, 
not  to  hinder,  others.  The  sense  of  the 
value  and  sacredness  of  the  person  plainly 
looks  to  the  same  deepening  of  obligation. 

As  an  element  of  the  social  consciousness, 
the  sense  of  obligation  means  for  a  given 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  IQ 

individual,  a  growing  sense  of  responsibility 
for  all ;  and  for  society  at  large  an  increase 
in  the  number  of  those  who  feel  the  obli- 
gation to  serve. 

The  growth  in  each  of  these  directions 
cannot  be  questioned.  There  is  no  privi- 
leged class,  in  whose  own  consciences  there 
is  not  being  recognized  more  and  more  the 
right  of  the  claim  that  they  must  justify  them- 
selves by  service  which  shall  be  as  unique 
as  their  privilege.  In  consequence,  the  con- 
ception of  the  governing  classes  is  steadily 
changing,  for  both  the  governed  and  the 
governing,  to  some  recognition  of  Christ's 
principle,  that  he  who  would  be  first  must 
be  servant  of  all.  The  sharp  insistence  of 
the  sociologist  that  "organization  must  be  for 
the  organized"  expresses  the  same  thought. 
One  must  add  sociology's  double  asser- 
tion, that  society  is  really  advancing  toward 
its  goal,  and  yet  that  a  chief  condition  of 
the  progress  of  society  is  unselfish  leader- 
ship.1 This  can  only  mean  that  there  is, 
increasingly,  unselfish  leadership,  more  and 
more  of  conscious,  willing  cooperation  on 
the  part  of  men  in  forwarding  the  social 
evolution. 

1  See  Giddings,  Op.  cit.,  pp.  302,  320-322. 


20         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

None  of  us  can  return  to  the  older  atti- 
tude of  comparative  indifference,  nor  can  we 
honestly  defend  it.  We  do  have  obligations 
and  we  own  them ;  we  are  judging  ourselves 
increasingly  by  Christ's  test  of  ministering 
love. 

V.    THE    SENSE   OF   LOVE 

And  the  social  consciousness  ends  neces- 
sarily in  love,  in  the  broader,  ethical  meaning 
of  that  word.  We  shall  never  feel  that  the 
social  consciousness  is  complete,  short  of  real 
love.  All  the  other  elements  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness lead  to  love  and  are  included  in  it. 
Even  the  sociologist  must  bring  in  as  neces- 
sary results  of  the  consciousness  of  kind — sym- 
pathy, affection,  and  desire  for  the  recognition 
of  others;1  and  he  finds  these  always  more 
or  less  distinctly  at  work  among  men. 

These  further  considerations  from  the  study 
of  evolution  confirm  this  result:  that  man  is 
preeminently  the  social  animal;2  that  with 
man  we  have  clearly  reached  the  stage  of 
persons  and  of  personal  relations ;:{  that  the 
very  existence  and  development  of  man  re- 

1  Cf.  Giddings,  Op.  cit.,  pp.  65,  66. 

2Cf.  Giddings,  Op.  cit.,  p.  241. 

8 See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  pp.  92-96. 


DEFINITION    OF    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS  21 

quired  love  at  every  step  j1  and  that  the  chief 
moral  significance  of  man's  prolonged  infancy 
is  probably  to  be  found  in  the  necessary  call- 
ing out  of  love.2 

So,  too,  it  has  become  constantly  more  and 
more  clear  that  our  obligation,  what  we  owe 
to  others,  is  ourselves ;  and  the  giving  of  the 
self  is  love.  It  seems  to  be  thrust  home 
upon  social  workers  everywhere  that  there  is 
no  solution  of  any  social  problem  without  a 
personal  self-giving  in  some  way  on  the  part 
of  some;  that  there  is  no  cheaper  way  than 
this  very  costly  one  of  love,  of  the  giving  of 
ourselves — whether  in  the  family,  or  in  char- 
ity, or  in  criminology. 

The  point,  already  noted,  that  the  progress 
of  society  depends  on  leaders  who  will  serve 
with  unselfish  devotion,  is  only  another  em- 
phasis upon  love  as  an  indispensable  element 
of  the  social  consciousness. 

And  the  social  goal — equality,  brotherhood, 
liberty,  when  these  terms  are  given  any  ade- 
quate ethical  content — is  absolutely  unthink- 
able in  any  really  vital  sense  without  love. 

Any  attempted    definition    of    love,    more- 

1  Cf.  Drummond,  The  Ascent  of  Man,  pp.  272  ff. 
*Cf.  John  Fiske,  The  Destiny  of  Man,  p.  74;  Drummond,  Op. 
cit.,  p.  279  ff. 


22         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

over,  resolves  at  once  into  what  we  mean  by 
the  social  consciousness.  If  we  define  love 
as  the  giving  of  self,  this  is  exactly  what, 
with  growing  clearness  and  insistence,  the 
social  consciousness  demands.  If  with  Herr- 
mann we  call  love,  "joy  in  personal  life" 
joy,  that  is,  in  the  revelation  of  personal  life, 
this  can  only  come  in  that  trustful,  reverent, 
self -surrendering  association  to  which  the 
social  consciousness  exhorts.  If  with  Ed- 
wards we  call  love,  willing  the  highest  and 
completest  good  of  all,  we  reach  the  same 
result.  Or  if  with  Christ  in  the  Beatitudes, 
or  with  Paul  in  the  thirteenth  of  I  Cor- 
inthians, we  study  the  characteristics  of  love, 
we  shall  hardly  doubt  that  a  complete  social 
consciousness  must  have  these  marks  of  love. 

These  elements,  then,  make  up  the  social 
consciousness :  the  sense  of  like-mindedness, 
of  mutual  influence,  of  the  value  and  sacred- 
ness  of  the  person,  of  obligation,  and  of  love; 
and  all  these,  with  their  implied  demands, 
only  point  to  what  a  person  must  be  if  he  is 
to  be  fully  personal. 

With  this  definition  in  mind,  we  may 
now  ask,  whether  the  analogy  of  the  or- 
ganism can  adequately  express  the  social 
consciousness. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  INADEQUACY  OF  THE  ANALOGY  OF  THE  ORGANISM 
AS  AN  EXPRESSION  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS1 

I.    THE  VALUE   OF  THE    ANALOGY 

THE  analogy  of  the  organism  has  played 
so  large  a  part  in  the  history  of  thought, 
especially  in  the  consideration  of  ethical  and 
social  questions,  that  it  is  well  worth  while 
to  ask  exactly  how  far  this  analogy  is  ade- 
quate, although  the  danger  of  the  abuse  of 
the  analogy  is  probably  somewhat  less  than 
formerly. 

It  may  be  said  at  once  that  it  is,  undoubt- 
edly, the  very  best  illustration  of  these  social 
relations  that  we  can  draw  from  nature,  and  it 
is  of  real  value.  It  has  had,  moreover,  as 
already  indicated,  a  most  influential  and 
largely  honorable  history  in  the  development 
of  the  thought  of  men.  Its  classical  expres- 
sion is  in  the  epoch-making  twelfth  chapter 
of  I  Corinthians,  which  makes  so  plain  the 
ethical  applications  of  the  analogy. 

lCt.  King,  Op.  «/.,  pp.  92  ff.,  179. 
(23) 


24         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

II.    THE    INEVITABLE    INADEQUACY  OF  THE 
ANALOGY 

1.  Comes  from  the  Sub-personal  World. — But 
it   ought   clearly   to    be    seen,    on    the   other 
hand,  that,  considered  as  a  complete  expres- 
sion of  the  social  consciousness,  it  is  neces- 
sarily inadequate ;   and  it  is  of  moment  that 
we    should    not    be    dominated    by   it.      Too 
often  it  has  been  made  to   cover  the   entire 
ground,  as  though   in   itself   it  were   a  com- 
plete expression  and  final  explanation  of  the 
social   consciousness,    instead    of   a   quite   in- 
complete illustration.     For,  in  the  first  place, 
the  very   fact   that   the    analogy  comes   from 
the    physical   world,    from    the    sub-personal 
realm,   makes    it  certain   that   it  must   fail   at 
vital  points  in  the  expression  of  what  is  pecu- 
liarly a  personal  and  ethical  fact.     We  can- 
not  safely  argue    directly   from   the   physical 
illustration  to  ethical  propositions. 

2.  Access    to    ^Reality,    Only    Through    Our- 
selves.— Moreover,  in  this  day  of  extraordinary 
attention  to  the  physical  world,  it  is  particu- 
larly important  that  we  should  keep  constantly 
in  mind  that  we  have  direct  access  to  reality 
only  in  ourselves ;   that  man  is  himself  neces- 
sarily the  only  key  which  we  can  use  for  any 


THE  ANALOGY  OF  THE  ORGANISM        25 

ultimate  understanding  of  anything;  or,  as 
Paulsen  puts  it,  "I  know  reality  as  it  is  in 
itself,  in  so  far  as  I  am  real  myself,  or  in  so 
far  as  it  is,  or  is  like,  that  which  I  am, 
namely,  spirit."1  We  are  not  to  forget  that, 
in  very  truth,  we  know  better  what  we  mean 
by  persons  and  personal  relations,  than  we  do 
what  we  mean  by  members  of  a  body  and 
by  organic  relations ;  and,  further,  that  in 
point  of  fact,  all  those  metaphysical  notions 
by  which  we  strive  to  think  things  are  ulti- 
mately derived  from  ourselves ;  and  that  then 
we  illogically  turn  back  upon  our  own  minds, 
from  which  all  these  notions  came,  to  explain 
the  mind  in  the  same  secondary  way  in  which 
we  explain  other  things. 

3.  Mistaken  Passion  for  Construing  Every- 
thing.— Natural  science,  with  its  sole  problem 
of  the  tracing  of  immediate  causal  connec- 
tions, naturally  provokes  a  persistent,  but 
nevertheless  thoroughly  mistaken,  "  passion," 
as  Lotze  calls  it,2  "for  construing  everything," 
—even  the  most  real  and  final  reality,  spirit; 
which  wishes  to  see  even  this  real  and  final 
reality  explained  as  the  mechanical  result  of 
the  combination  of  simpler  elements,  them- 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  p.  373. 

2  The  Microcosmus,  Vol.  I,  p.  262. 


26          THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

selves,  it  is  to  be  noted,  finally  absolutely 
inexplicable.  Such  perverse  attempts  will  be 
widely  hailed,  by  many  who  do  not  understand 
themselves,  as  highly  scientific.  And  one  who 
refuses  to  enter  upon  such  investigations 
will  be  criticized  by  such  minds  as  "hardly 
getting  into  grips  with  his  subject." 

But  it  is  a  false  application  of  the  scientific 
instinct  that  leads  one  to  seek  mechanical 
explanation  for  the  final  reality,  or  that  urges 
to  precision  of  formulation  beyond  that  war- 
ranted by  the  data.  It  is  from  exactly  this 
falsely  scientific  bias  that  theology  needs 
deliverance.  "For,"  as  Aristotle  reminds  us, 
"it  is  the  mark  of  a  man  of  culture  to  try  to 
attain  exactness  in  each  kind  of  knowledge 
just  so  far  as  the  nature  of  the  subject 
allows."  There  is  a  wise  agnosticism  that 
is  violated  alike  by  negative  and  by  positive 
dogmatism.  It  is  often  overlooked  that  there 
is  an  over -wise  radicalism  that  assumes  a 
knowledge  of  the  depth  of  the  finite  and 
infinite,  quite  as  insistent  and  dogmatic  as 
the  view  it  supposes  itself  to  be  opposing. 
"I  know  it  is  not  so,"  it  ought  not  to  need 
to  be  said,  is  not  agnosticism. 

The  guiding  principle  in  a  truly  scientific 
theology  is  this,  as  Lotze  suggests:  Just 


THE  ANALOGY  OF  THE  ORGANISM        27 

so  far  as  changing  action  depends  upon  alter- 
ing conditions,  we  have  explanatory  and  con- 
structive problems  to  solve,  and  no  farther. 
No  philosophical  view  can  do  without  a 
simply  given  reality.  And  we  shall  never 
succeed  in  understanding  by  what  machinery 
reality  is  manufactured  —  in  "  deducing  the 
whole  positive  content  of  reality  from  mere 
modifications  of  formal  conditions."1 

We  shall  not  allow  ourselves  to  be  misled, 
therefore,  by  the  scientific  sound  of  the 
detailed  application  of  the  analogy  of  the 
organism  to  the  facts  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness. And  it  is  a  satisfaction  to  see  that  the 
clearest  sociological  writers  are  coming  to 
agree  that  there  is  strictly  no  "social  mind" 
that  can  be  affirmed  to  exist  as  a  separate 
reality,  supposed  to  answer  to  society  con- 
ceived in  its  totality  as  an  organism. 


III.     THE    ANALOGY    TESTED     BY    THE     DEFINITION 
OF   THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

When,  now,  we  test  the  analogy  of  the 
organism  by  its  competency  to  express  the 
full  meaning  of  the  social  consciousness,  as 
it  has  been  defined,  we  must  say  that  the 

1Lotze,  The  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  pp.  649  ff. 


28         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

analogy  but  feebly  expresses  the  likeness  of 
men ;  it  best  expresses  the  inevitableness  of 
mutual  influence,  though  even  here  there  is 
no  understandable  ultimate  explanation;  it 
fairly  expresses  the  desirableness  and  indis- 
pensableness  of  mutual  influence,  but,  of 
course,  with  entire  lack  of  ethical  meaning; 
and  it  quite  fails  to  express  the  sense  of  the 
value  and  the  sacredness  of  the  person,  the 
sense  of  obligation,  and  the  sense  of  love. 
We  need  to  see  and  feel  exactly  these  short- 
comings, if  we  are  not  to  abuse  the  analogy. 
There  is  no  social  consciousness  that  will 
hold  water  that  does  not  rest  on  what  Phillips 
Brooks  called  "a  healthy  and  ineradicable 
individualism,"  in  the  sense  of  the  recogni- 
tion of  the  fully  personal.  We  are  spirits, 
not  organisms,  and  society  is  a  society  of 
persons,  not  an  organism,  in  a  strict  sense. 
Why  should  we  wish  to  make  society  less 
significant  than  it  is? 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  NECESSITY  OF  THE  FACTS,  OF  WHICH  THE  SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS  IS  THE   REFLECTION,  IF  IDEAL 
INTERESTS   ARE    ro    BE    SUPREME 

I.   THE    QUESTION 

WITH  this  positive  and  negative  definition 
of  the  social  consciousness  in  our  minds,  a 
third  question  immediately  suggests  itself  to 
one  who  wishes  to  go  to  the  bottom  of  our 
theme.  Why  must  the  facts,  of  which  the 
social  consciousness  is  the  reflection,  be  as 
they  are  if  ideal  interests  are  to  be  supreme  ? 
What  has  a  theodicy  to  say  as  to  these  facts  ? 
Why,  that  is,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the 
ideal — of  religion  and  theology — why  are  we 
constituted  so  alike?  so  that  we  must  influ- 
ence one  another?  so  that  the  results  of  our 
actions  necessarily  go  over  into  the  lives  of 
others?  so  that  the  innocent  suffer  with  the 
guilty  and  the  guilty  profit  with  the  righteous? 
so  that  we  must  recognize  everywhere  the 
claim  of  others?  so  that  we  must  respect  their 
personality?  and  so  that  we  must  love  them? 

(29) 


30         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 
II.    OTHERWISE    NO    MORAL    WORLD    AT    ALL 

The  answer  to  all  these  world-old  questions 
may  perhaps  be  contained  in  the  single  state- 
ment, that  otherwise  we  should  have  no  moral 
world  at  all.  There  would  be  no  thinkable 
moral  universe,  but  rather  as  many  worlds  as 
there  are  individuals,  having  no  more  to  do 
with  one  another  than  the  chemical  reactions 
going  on  in  a  set  of  test-tubes. 

i.  The  Prerequisites  of  a  Moral  World.  For 
our  human  thinking,  assuredly,  there  are  cer- 
tain prerequisites,  that  the  world  may  be  at 
all  a  sphere  for  moral  training  and  action. 
What  are  these  prerequisites  for  a  moral 
world?  There  must  be,  in  the  first  place,  a 
sphere  of  universal  law,  to  count  on,  within 
which  all  actions  take  place.  In  a  lawless 
world,  action  could  hardly  take  on  any  signifi- 
cance— least  of  all  ethical  significance.  That 
freedom  itself  should  mean  anything  in  out- 
ward expression,  there  must  be  the  possibility 
of  intelligent  use  of  means  toward  the  ends 
chosen. 

There  must  be,  in  the  second  place,  some 
real  ethical  freedom,  some  power  of  moral  ini- 
tiative. We  need  not  quarrel  about  the  terms 
used;  but,  as  Paulsen  intimates,  no  serious 


THE    NECESSITY    OF    THE     FACTS  31 

ethical  writer  ever  doubted  that  men  have  at 
least  some  power  to  shape  their  own  charac- 
ters.1 Without  that  assumption,  we  have  a 
whole  world  of  ideas  and  ideals  —  many  of 
them  the  realest  facts  in  the  world  to  us — that 
have  no  legitimate  excuse  for  being,  that  are 
simple  insanities  of  the  most  inexplicable  sort. 
The  very  meaning  of  the  personality,  indeed, 
which  the  social  consciousness  must  demand 
for  men,  is  some  real  existence  for  self,  that 
is,  some  real  self-consciousness  and  moral 
initiative. 

And  freedom  is  not  enough;  there  must 
be  also  some  power  of  accomplishment.  To 
ascribe  mere  volition  to  man  seems,  it  has 
been  justly  said,  sophistical.  Results  are 
needed  to  reveal  the  character  of  our  acts, 
even  to  ourselves  —  to  make  that  character 
real.  Lotze's  charge  that  the  world  is  imper- 
fect because  it  might  have  been  so  made  that 
only  good  designs  could  be  carried  out,  or  so 
that  the  results  of  evil  volitions  would  be  at 
once  corrected,2  is  itself  similarly  sophistical. 
Such  a  world,  in  which  the  outward  results  of 
action  never  appear,  would  be  but  a  play- 
world  after  all — only  a  nursery  of  babes  not 

1  System  of  Ethics  pp.  467  ff. 

2  Philosophy  of  Religion,  p.  125. 


32         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

yet  capable  of  character.  It  could  be  no  fit 
world  for  moral  training. 

And  still  more,  not  less,  must  this  law  of 
the  necessary  results  of  actions  hold  in  our 
relations  to  other  persons.  There  can  be, 
least  of  all,  a  moral  universe  where  we  are  not 
members  one  of  another.  Character,  in  any  form 
we  can  conceive  it,  could  not  then  exist. 
Our  best,  as  well  as  our  worst,  possibilities  are 
involved  in  these  necessary  mutual  relations. 
Moral  character  has  meaning  only  in  personal 
relations.  The  results,  therefore,  which  follow 
upon  action,  if  the  character  of  our  deed  is  to 
have  reality  for  us,  must  be  chiefly  personal. 
The  realm  of  character  has  fearful  possibili- 
ties. This  is  no  play-world.  We  can  cause 
and  be  caused  suffering,  and  our  sin  neces- 
sarily carries  the  suffering,  if  not  the  sin,  of 
others  with  it. 

2.  The  Ideal  World  Requires,  thus,  the  Facts 
of  the  Social  Consciousness. —  All  this  could  be 
changed  in  any  vital  way  only  by  shutting  up 
every  soul  absolutely  to  itself,  and  with  that 
result  life  has  simply  ceased. 

For  we  cannot  really  conceive  a  person 
as  having  any  reason  for  being  without  such 
relations.  He  would  be  constantly  baffled  at 
every  point,  for  he  is  made  for  persons  and 


THE     NECESSITY    OF    THE    FACTS  33 

personal  relations.  Love,  too,  the  highest 
source  of  both  character  and  happiness,  re- 
quires everywhere  personal  relations.  Reli- 
gion itself,  as  a  sharing  of  the  life  of  God, 
would  be  impossible  without  some  relation 
to  others;  for  God,  at  least,  could  not  be 
separated  from  the  life  of  all.  That  is,  per- 
sons, love,  religion,  in  such  a  world,  have 
gone. 

This,  then,  simply  means  that  the  ideal 
world  ceases  to  be,  with  the  denial  of  the 
facts  that  the  social  consciousness  reflects. 
We  must  be  full  persons,  social  beings  in 
the  entire  meaning  demanded  by  the  social 
consciousness  —  hard  as  the  consequences  in- 
volved often  are  —  if  ideal  interests  are  to  be 
supreme.  Indeed,  the  very  moral  judgment, 
that  incessantly  prompts  the  problem  of  evil 
for  every  one  of  us,  is  required,  for  its  own 
existence,  to  assume  the  validity  of  the  rela- 
tions about  which  it  questions.  For  it  com- 
plains, for  the  most  part,  of  those  facts  that 
follow  inevitably  from  the  necessary  mutual 
influence  of  men ;  but  the  chief  sources  of 
the  joy  it  requires,  that  it  may  justify  the 
world,  lie  in  these  same  mutual  relations.  It 
assumes,  thus,  in  its  claims  on  the  world,  the 
validity  and  worth  of  the  very  relations  of 


34        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

which  it  complains  in  its  criticism  of  the 
world.  Or,  slightly  to  vary  the  statement, 
the  major  premise,  even  of  pessimism,  is  that 
a  really  justifiable  world  must  have  worth  in 
the  joy  it  yields  in  personal  life,  impossible 
out  of  the  personal  relations  of  a  real  moral 
universe.  And  there  can  be  no  moral  uni- 
verse without  the  facts  reflected  in  the  social 
consciousness.  The  ideal  world  requires, 
then,  the  facts  of  the  social  consciousness. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE    ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  AND    GROUND    OF    THE 
SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS 

THE  most  important  and  fundamental  in-' 
quiry  as  to  the  possible  help  of  theology  to 
the  social  consciousness  still  remains :  What 
is  the  ultimate  explanation  and  ground  of  the 
social  consciousness?  This  question  includes 
two:  (i)  How  can  it  be  metaphysically  that 
we  do  influence  one  another?  (2)  What  is 
required  for  the  final  positive  justification  of 
the  social  consciousness  as  ethical?  Theol- 
ogy's answer  to  both  questions  is  found  in 
the  being  and  character  of  God,  the  creative 
and  moral  source  of  all. 

I.     HOW    CAN    IT    BE,    METAPHYSICALLY,   THAT    WE 
DO    INFLUENCE    ONE    ANOTHER? 

First,  then,  how  can  it  be  that  we  do  in- 
fluence one  another?  What  is  the  final 
explanation  of  the  constant  fact  of  our  recip- 
rocal action?  For  in  our  final  thinking  we 
may  not  ignore  this  question. 

(35) 


36         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

I.  Not  Due  to  the  Physical  Fact  of  Race-Con- 
nection.—  It  may  be  worth  while  saying,  first, 
that  the  physical  fact  of  race-connection,  if 
that  could  be  proved,  would  be  no  sufficient 
explanation.  The  race  may,  or  may  not,  be 
dependent  upon  a  single  pair,  but  in  any 
case  this  is  not  the  essential  connection. 
The  race  is  one  by  virtue  of  its  essential 
likeness,  however  that  comes  about.  Men 
might  have  sprung  out  of  the  ground  in 
absolute  individual  independence  of  one  an- 
other, and  yet  if  there  were  such  actual  like- 
mindedness  as  now  exists,  the  race  would  be 
as  truly  one  as  it  now  is,  and  as  capable  of 
reciprocal  action,  and  its  members  under  the 
same  obligation  to  one  another.  No  ideal 
interest  is  at  stake,  then,  in  the  question  of  the 
actual  physical  unity  of  the  race  as  descended 
from  one  pair. 

One  may  say,  of  course,  that  the  physical 
unity  of  the  race  would  naturally  result,  ac- 
cording to  the  laws  apparently  prevailing  in 
the  animal  world,  in  likeness.  And  this  may, 
therefore,  seem  to  him  the  most  natural 
proximate  explanation.  But,  even  so,  it  is 
well  to  know  that  our  entire  moral  interest 
is  in  the  essential  likeness  and  mutual  influ- 
ence of  men,  however  brought  about,  and 


THE  ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  37 

not  in  the  physical  unity  of  men.  Theology 
has  no  occasion  to  continue  its  earlier  exces- 
sive and  quite  fundamental  emphasis  upon 
this  physical  unity.  Moreover,  such  an  ex- 
planation is  necessarily  but  proximate.  Back 
of  it  lies  the  deeper  question,  Why  just  these 
laws,  and  modes  of  procedure? 

2.  We  are  not  to  Over-Emphasize  the  Prin- 
ciple of  Heredity. — Nor  can  theology,  from 
any  point  of  view,  afford  to  over-emphasize 
the  principle  of  heredity  if  it  wishes  to  keep 
human  initiative  at  all.  It  is  a  dangerous 
alliance  which  the  old-school  theology  with 
its  racial  sin  in  Adam  has  been  so  ready  to 
make  with  the  principle  of  heredity.  That 
principle,  as  they  wish  to  use  it,  proves  quite 
too  much;  and  careful  thinkers,  really  awake 
to  ideal  interests,  may  well  rejoice  in  the  com- 
parative relief  which  science  itself,  through 
the  probably  somewhat  exaggerated  protest 
of  the  Weismann  or  Neo-Darwinian  school, 
seems  likely  to  afford  from  the  incubus  of  a 
grossly  exaggerated  heredity.  The  main  in- 
terest for  the  ideal  view  lies  right  here.  We 
can  see  why  this  law  of  the  "inheritance  of 
acquired  characteristics,"  in  Professor  James' 
language,  "should  not  be  verified  in  the  human 
race,  and  why,  therefore,  in  looking  for  evi- 


38          THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

dence  on  the  subject,  we  should  confine  our- 
selves exclusively  to  lower  animals.  In  them 
fixed  habit  is  the  essential  and  characteristic 
law  of  nervous  action.  The  brain  grows  to 
the  exact  modes  in  which  it  has  been  exer- 
cised, and  the  inheritance  of  these  modes- 
then  called  instincts — would  have  in  it  noth- 
ing surprising.  But  in  man  the  negation  of 
all  fixed  modes  is  the  essential  characteristic. 
He  owes  his  whole  preeminence  as  a  rea- 
soner,  his  whole  human  quality  of  intellect, 
we  may  say,  to  the  facility  with  which  a  given 
mode  of  thought  in  him  may  suddenly  be 
broken  up  into  elements,  which  re-combine 
anew.  Only  at  the  price  of  inheriting  no 
settled  instinctive  tendencies  is  he  able  to 
settle  every  novel  case  by  the  fresh  discovery 
by  his  reason  of  novel  principles.  He  is,  par 
excellence,  the  educable  animal."1 

To  over-emphasize  the  principle  of  he- 
redity, then,  is  to  strike  at  one  of  the  most 
fundamental  distinctive  human  qualities,  and 
so  to  endanger  every  ideal  interest.  The 
growing  like  -mindedness  of  men  and  their 
mutual  influence  are  not  forthwith  to  be 
ascribed  to  an  omnipotent  principle  of 
heredity. 

JJames,  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  pp.  367,  368. 


THE  ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  39 

3.  Not  Due  to  a  Mystical  Solidarity. — Nor 
is  the  mutual  influence  of  men  to  be  ex- 
plained by  any  mystical  solidarity  of  the  race 
considered  as  a  finite  whole.  It  is  a  simple 
and  reasonable  scientific  demand,  that  we 
should  not  assume  a  mysterious,  indefinable 
and  incalculable  cause,  where  known  and 
intelligible  causes  suffice  to  explain  the  phe- 
nomena in  question.  Do  we  need,  or  can  we 
intelligently  use,  a  mystical  solidarity?  The 
only  solidarity  of  the  race  which  we  seem 
really  to  need,  or  with  which  we  seem  able 
intelligently  to  deal,  is  the  actual  like-minded- 
ness  and  the  actual  personal  relations  them- 
selves— the  reciprocal  action  of  spirits — the 
only  kind  of  reciprocal  action  which  we  can 
finally  fully  conceive.  Any  other  finite  sol- 
idarity than  this,  though  it  has  often  figured 
in  theology,  seems  to  me  only  a  name  with- 
out significance.  In  any  case,  we  need  to 
insist  in  theology,  much  more  than  we  have, 
upon  that  unity  of  the  race  which  is  due  to 
the  actual  likeness  of  men  and  their  actual 
mutual  personal  influence.  Such  a  unity  we 
know  and  can  understand,  and  it  is  of  the 
highest  ethical  and  spiritual  importance.  But 
to  make  much  of  the  physical  unity  is  to 
ground  the  spiritual  in  the  physical;  and,  on 


40         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  other  hand,  to  take  refuge  in  a  mystical 
solidarity — and  this  is  often  felt  to  be  a  rather 
deep  procedure  —  for  whatever  theological 
purpose,  is  to  hide  in  the  fog  of  the  obscure 
and  unintelligible. 

4.  Grounded  in  the  Immanence  of  God. — 
But  back  of  all  finite  phenomena,  we  may 
still  ask  for  an  ultimate  explanation  of  the 
possibility  of  any  reciprocal  action  even  be- 
tween spirits.  And  it  is,  perhaps,  this  ulti- 
mate explanation  after  which  the  idea,  of  a 
mystical  solidarity  of  the  race  is  blindly  grop- 
ing. Unless  one  chooses  to  accept  reciprocal 
action  as  a  necessarily  given  fact  in  any  uni- 
verse (and  this  position,  I  think  with  F.  C.  S. 
Schiller,  may  be  reasonably  defended)  ,x  he 
must  somewhere  in  his  thinking  ask  for  its 
final  explanation.  And  most  of  those,  who 
try  to  think  things  through,  feel  this  pressure. 
And  metaphysics,  we  do  well  to  remember 
with  Professor  James,  "means  only  an  unusu- 
ally obstinate  attempt  to  think  clearly  and 
consistently."2  As  Lotze  puts  it:  "How  a 
cause  begins  to  produce  its  immediate  effect, 
how  a  condition  is  the  foundation  of  its  direct 
result,  it  will  never  be  possible  to  say ;  yet 

lThe  Philosophical  Review,  May,  1896,  p.  228. 
'^Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  461. 


THE    ULTIMATE     EXPLANATION 


that  cause  and  effect  do  thus  act  must  be 
reckoned  among  those  simple  facts  that  com- 
pose the  reality  which  is  the  object  of  all  our 
investigation.  But  there  is  an  intolerable 
contradiction  in  the  assumption  that,  though 
two  beings  may  be  wholly  independent  the 
one  of  the  other,  yet  that  which  takes  place 
in  one  can  be  a  cause  of  change  in  the  other ; 
things  that  do  not  affect  each  other  at  all, 
cannot  at  the  same  time  affect  each  other  in 
such  a  manner  that  the  one  is  guided  by  the 
other."1 

This  question  is  fairly  thrust  upon  us  by 
the  facts  of  the  social  consciousness.  How 
can  it  be  that  we  do  so  influence  one 
another?  how  is  our  reciprocal  action  meta- 
physically possible?  The  answer  of  theistic 
philosophy  to  this  question  is  found  in  the 
being  of  God. 

Upon  the  metaphysical  side,  theistic  phil- 
osophy affirms  that  we  can  ascribe  indepen- 
dent existence  in  the  highest  sense  only  to 
God.  All  else  is  absolutely  dependent  for 
its  existence  and  maintenance  upon  him. 
The  kind  of  reality  that  we  demand  for  man 
is  not  that  he  be  outside  of  God,  independent 
of  him;  this  would  not  make  man  more, 

1  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  p.  599. 


42         THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

but  less.  Every  thorough-going  theistic  view 
must  have  this  at  least  in  common  with 
pantheism,  that  it  recognizes  everywhere  a 
real  immanence  of  God.  We  are,  because 
God  wills  in  us.  This  metaphysical  relation 
of  the  finite  to  the  infinite,  to  be  sure,  is  not 
to  be  conceived  spatially  or  materially;  nor, 
least  of  all,  is  it  be  so  conceived  as  to  deny 
a  real  self -consciousness  and  a  real  moral 
initiative  to  the  finite  spirit;  but  it  does  in- 
volve the  absolute  dependence  of  all  the 
finite  upon  the  will  of  God.  As  to  our 
being,  we  root  solely  in  God.  And  the  unity 
and  consistency  of  the  being  of  God  are  the 
actual  ground  of  our  possible  reciprocal 
action.  Only  so  is  that  contradiction  of 
which  Lotze  spoke  avoided.  We  are  not 
independent  of  one  another,  because  we  are 
all  alike  dependent  for  our  very  being  upon 
God.  And  we  are  thus  members  one  of 
another,  ultimately,  only  through  him. 

The  further  fact,  that  we  are  never  fully 
able  to  trace  causal  connections  anywhere; 
that  even  in  the  clearest  case  no  possible 
analysis  of  one  stage  in  the  process  enables 
us  to  prophesy,  independently  of  experience, 
the  next  stage,  also  compels  us  to  admit  that 
the  full  cause  is  not  really  present  in  any  of 


THE     ULTIMATE     EXPLANATION  43 

the  finite  manifestations  we  can  follow;  that 
we  have  always  to  take  account  of  the  "hid- 
den efficacy  of  the  Infinite  everywhere  at 
work,"  and  so  must  recognize  once  again 
the  indubitable  immanence  of  God,  the  ab- 
solute dependence  of  the  finite  upon  his 
will,  and  our  reciprocal  action  as  possible 
only  through  him.1 

Or,  to  put  the  same  thing  a  little  differ- 
ently, any  adequate  theory  of  causality  seems 
to  lead  us  up  inevitably  to  purpose  in  God. 
As  Professor  Bowne  states  it:2  "The  funda- 
mental antithesis  of  purpose  and  causation 
is  incorrect.  The  true  antithesis  is  that  of 
mechanical  and  volitional  causality."  And 
he  intimates  the  probability  that  all  causality, 
even  in  the  physical  world,  is  ultimately 
volitional.  "It  becomes  a  question,"  he  says, 
"whether  true  causality  can  be  found  in  the 
phenomenal  at  all,  and  not  rather  in  a  power 
beyond  the  phenomenal  which  incessantly 
posits  and  continues  that  order  according  to 
rule."  The  unity  and  consistency  of  the 
immanent  will  of  God,  then,  are  the  ulti- 
mate metaphysical  ground  of  all  reciprocal 
action.  The  mutual  influence,  that  is,  even 

1See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  pp.  54,  84,  102. 
2  Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge,  pp.  91,  zix. 


44         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  spirits,  finds  its  final  full  explanation  only 
in  God. 

The  social  consciousness,  therefore,  so  far 
as  it  is  an  expression  of  the  possibility  and 
inevitableness  of  our  mutual  influence,  is  a 
reflection  of  the  immanence  of  the  one  God 
in  the  unity  and  consistency  of  his  life. 

But  this,  after  all,  is  not  the  most  important 
element  of  the  social  consciousness.  So  far 
as  it  is  ethical  at  all,  it  can  have  no  final  ex- 
planation in  the  metaphysical,  considered  as 
mere  matter  of  fact.  We  are  driven,  there- 
fore, to  ask  the  second  question  involved  in 
the  subject  of  the  chapter. 


II.    WHAT    IS    REQUIRED    FOR    THE    FINAL   POSITIVE 

JUSTIFICATION   OF  THE   SOCIAL   CON- 

SCIOUSNESS   AS    ETHICAL? 


i.  Must  be  Grounded  in  the  Supporting 
of  God.  —  It  is  not  enough  that  we  should  be 
able  to  think  of  the  unity  of  One  Life  per- 
vading all,  or  even  of  One  Will  upholding 
all.  If  the  social  consciousness,  as  distinctly 
ethical,  is  to  have  any  final  justification,  it 
must  be  able  to  believe  that  it  is  in  league 
with  the  eternal  and  universal  forces  ;  that 
the  fundamental  trend  of  the  universe  is  its 


THE  ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  45 

own  trend ;  in  other  words,  that  the  deepest 
thing  in  the  universe  is  an  ethical  purpose 
conceivable  only  in  a  Person ;  that  the  ideals 
and  purposes  of  finite  beings  expressed  in  the 
social  consciousness  are  in  line  with  God's 
own;  that  the  loving  holy  purpose  of  the 
Infinite  Will  quickens  and  sustains  and  sur- 
rounds our  purposes. 

Let  us  distinctly  face  the  fact  that,  unless 
the  social  consciousness  can  be  so  grounded 
in  the  very  foundation  of  the  universe,  it  must 
remain  an  illogical  and  unjustifiable  fragment 
in  the  world,  without  real  excuse  for  being. 
That  is,  if  the  social  consciousness  is  not  to 
be  an  illusion,  it  must  be,  as  Professor  Nash 
contends,  cosmical,  and  not  merely  individ- 
ual, and  ethics  must  root  in  religion.  This 
is  the  very  heart  of  his  stimulating  book, 
Ethics  and  Revelation,  expressed,  for  example, 
in  such  sentences  as  these:  "Nothing  save 
a  sense  of  deep  and  intimate  connection  with 
the  solid  core  of  things,  nothing  save  a  set- 
tled and  fervid  conviction  that  the  universe 
is  on  the  side  of  the  will  in  its  struggle  for 
that  whole-hearted  devotion  for  the  welfare 
of  the  race,  without  which  morality  is  an  affair 
of  shreds  and  patches,  can  give  to  the  will 
the  force  and  edge  suitable  to  the  difficult 


46          THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

work  it  has  to  do.  But  this  sense  of  kinship 
with  what  is  deepest  and  most  abiding  in  the 
universe  —  what  else  is  meant  by  pure  relig- 
ion." And  again  :  "We,  as  founders  and 
builders  of  the  true  society,  find  ourselves 
shut  up  to  an  impassioned  faith  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  the  universe  and  the  integrity  of 
the  fundamental  being.  Our  religion  is  a 
deep  and  wide  synthesis  of  feeling,  whereby 
that  personal  will  in  us,  which  grounds  soci- 
ety, comes  into  solemn  league  and  covenant 
with  the  fundamental  being.  Here  is  the 
focus-point  of  the  prophetic  revelation.  At 
this  point,  the  deep  in  God  answers  to  the 
deep  in  Man.  .  .  .  All  that  He  is  He  puts 
in  pledge  for  the  perfecting  of  the  society 
He  has  founded."1 

Paulsen  expresses  only  the  same  funda- 
mental conviction,  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  philosopher,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the 
heart  of  his  own  solution  of  the  relation  be- 
tween knowledge  and  faith,  when  he  says : 
"There  is  one  item,  at  least,  in  which  every 
man  goes  beyond  mere  knowledge,  beyond 
the  registration  of  facts.  That  is  his  own 
life  and  his  future.  His  life  has  a  meaning 
for  him,  and  he  directs  it  toward  something 

1  Ethics  and  Revelation,  pp.  50,  243,  244. 


THE  ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  47 

which  does  not  yet  exist,  but  which  will  exist 
by  virtue  of  his  will.  Thus  a  faith  springs 
up  by  the  side  of  his  knowledge.  He  be- 
lieves in  the  realization  of  this,  his  life's  aim, 
if  he  is  at  all  in  earnest  about  it.  Since, 
however,  his  aim  is  not  an  isolated  one,  but 
is  included  in  the  historical  life  of  a  people, 
and  finally  in  that  of  humanity,  he  believes 
also  in  the  future  of  his  people,  in  the  vic- 
torious future  of  truth  and  righteousness  and 
goodness  in  humanity.  Whoever  devotes  his 
life  to  a  cause  believes  in  that  cause,  and  this 
belief,  be  his  creed  what  it  may,  has  always 
something  of  the  form  of  a  religion.  Hence 
faith  infers  that  an  inner  connection  exists 
between  the  real  and  the  valuable  within  the 
domain  of  history,  and  believes  that  in  his- 
tory something  like  an  immanent  principle 
of  reason  or  justice  favors  the  right  and  the 
good,  and  leads  it  to  victory  over  all  resisting 
forces."  And  Paulsen  holds  that  this  implicit 
faith  characterizes  necessarily  every  philo- 
sophical theory.  "What  the  philosopher 
himself  accepts  as  the  highest  good  and  final 
goal  he  projects  into  the  world  as  its  good 
and  goal,  and  then  believes  that  subsequent 
reflections  also  reveal  it  to  him  in  the  world."1 

1  Introduction  to  Philosophy,  pp.  8,  9,  313. 


48          THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

We  must  be  able,  then,  to  believe  that 
the  best  we  know  —  our  highest  ideals  —  are 
at  home  in  the  world,  or  give  up  all  faith  in 
the  honesty  of  the  world,  and  all  hope  of 
philosophy,  to  say  nothing  of  religion.  Ulti- 
mately, now,  this  means  that  nothing  short  of 
full  Christian  conviction  is  needed  to  support 
the  social  consciousness.  We  need  to  be 
able  to  believe  that  the  spirit  of  the  life  and 
death  of  Christ  is  at  the  very  heart  of  the 
world.  Nothing  less  will  suffice.  And  this 
is  exactly  the  support  which  the  Christian 
revelation  offers  to  the  social  consciousness. 

2.  God^s  Sharing  in  Our  Life. —  But  if  the 
social  consciousness  is  only  a  true  reflection 
of  God's  own  desire  and  purpose,  then  in  a 
sense  far  deeper  than  the  merely  metaphys- 
ical, our  life  is  the  very  life  of  God.  He 
shares  in  it.  And  no  man  can  really  see 
what  that  means,  and  not  find  a  new  light 
falling  on  all  the  world,  and  himself  carried 
on  to  take  up  a  new  confession  of  faith  in 
the  solemn  words  of  another:  "For  the  agony 
of -the  world's  struggle  is  the  very  life  of  God. 
Were  he  mere  spectator,  perhaps,  he  too 
would  call  life  cruel.  But  in  the  unity  of 
our  lives  with  his,  our  joy  is  his  joy,  our 
pain  is  his."  And  from  the  vision  of  this 


THE     ULTIMATE     EXPLANATION  49 

self-giving  life  of  God  we  turn  back  to  our 
own  place  of  service,  saying  with  Matheson : 
"If  Thou  art  love  then  Thy  best  gift  must 
be  sacrifice ;  in  that  light  let  me  search  Thy 
world."1 

We  probably  cannot  better  express  this 
unity  of  our  highest  ethical  life  with  the  life 
of  God  than  by  renewing  our  old  faith  that 
we  are  children  of  a  common  Father,  who 
have  come,  under  God's  own  leading  —  so 
far  as  a  social  consciousness  is  ours  —  volun- 
tarily to  share  in  God's  loving  purpose  in 
the  creation  and  redemption  of  men.  We  do 
not  work  alone ;  nay,  we  are  co-workers  with 
God. 

3.  The  Consequent  Transfiguration  of  the  So- 
cial Consciousness. — And  as  soon  as  we  have 
thus  really  and  deeply  come  into  the  meaning 
of  Christ's  thought  of  God  as  Father,  and  into 
his  revelation  in  his  life  and  death  as  to  what 
the  spirit  of  that  Fatherhood  is,  we  turn  back 
to  the  elements  of  our  social  consciousness 
to  find  them  all  transfigured. 

Our  likeness  is  the  likeness  of  common  chil- 
ren  of  God  reflecting  the  image  of  the  one 
Father,  capable  of  character  and  of  indefinite 
progress  into  the  highest. 

1  Searching*  in  the  Silence,  p.  46. 


50          THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

Our  mutual  influence  roots  in  a  real  Father- 
hood, both  in  source  of  being  and  in  the  one 
purpose  of  love,  alike  creating  and  redemp- 
tively  working  for  all. 

Our  sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the 
person  now  for  the  first  time  gets  its  full  justifi- 
cation. Men  are  not  only  creatures  capable 
of  joying  and  suffering,  but  children  of  God 
with  a  preciousness  to  be  interpreted  only  in 
the  light  of  Christ,  and  with  the  "power  of 
the  endless  life"  upon  them.  Concerning 
the  value  of  the  person,  it  is  worth  stopping 
just  here,  to  notice  that  it  is  peculiarly  true 
of  the  social  consciousness,  that  it  is  not  free 
to  ignore  such  considerations  upon  immor- 
tality as  those  which  weighed  most  with 
John  Stuart  Mill  and  Sully.  Of  the  hope  of 
immortality,  Mill  says:  "The  beneficial  in- 
fluence of  such  a  hope  is  far  from  trifling. 
It  makes  life  and  human  nature  a  far 
greater  thing  to  the  feelings,  and  gives 
greater  strength  as  well  as  greater  solemnity 
to  all  the  sentiments  which  are  awakened  in 
us  by  our  fellow-creatures,  and  by  mankind 
at  large."  And  Sully  adds:  "I  would  only 
say  that  if  men  are  to  abandon  all  hope  of  a 
future  life,  the  loss,  in  point  of  cheering  and 
sustaining  influence,  will  be  a  vast  one,  and 


THE  ULTIMATE  EXPLANATION  51 

one  not  to  be  made  good,  so  far  as  I  can 
see,  by  any  new  idea  of  services  to  collective 
humanity."1 

Our  sense  of  obligation  deepens  with  all  this 
deepening  of  the  value  of  men,  and  our  con- 
science becomes  only  a  true  response  to  God's 
own  life  and  character — in  no  mere  figurative 
sense  the  voice  of  God  in  us. 

And  our  love  becomes  simply  entering  a 
little  way  into  God's  own  love,  a  sharing  more 
and  more  in  his  life. 

And  when  one  has  once  seen  the  social 
consciousness  so  transfigured  in  the  light  of 
Christ's  revelation,  he  must  believe  that  then, 
for  the  first  time,  he  has  seen  the  social  con- 
sciousness at  its  highest,  and  that  it  is  impos- 
sible for  him  to  go  back  to  the  lower  ideal. 
If  the  social  consciousness  is  not  an  illusion, 
Christ's  thought  of  God  and  of  the  life  with 
God  ought  to  be  true ;  and  if  the  world  is  an 
honest  world,  it  is  true.  It  is  not  only  true 
that  Christ  has  a  social  teaching,  but  that 
the  social  consciousness  absolutely  requires 
Christ's  teaching  for  its  own  final  justification. 
The  Christian  truth  is  so  great  that  it  alone 
can  give  the  social  consciousness  its  fullest 

1  Quoted  by  Orr,  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the  World,  pp. 
160,  72. 


52         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

meaning,  alone  can  enable  it  to  understand 
itself,  and  alone  can  give  it  adequate  motive 
and  power;  for,  in  Keim's  words,  "to-day, 
to-morrow,  and  forever  we  can  know  nothing 
better  than  that  God  is  our  Father,  and  that 
the  Father  is  the  rest  of  our  souls."1 

1  Quoted  by  Bruce,  The  Kingdom  of  God,  p.  157. 


THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS   UPON  THE   CON- 
CEPTION OF   RELIGION 

INTRODUCTION 

FROM  the  question  of  the  support  which 
Christian  faith  and  doctrine  give  to  the  social 
consciousness,  we  turn  now  to  the  second 
part  of  our  inquiry:  How  does  this  grow- 
ing social  consciousness,  not  by  any  means 
always  consciously  religious,  naturally  react 
upon  and  affect  our  conceptions  of  religion 
and  of  theological  doctrines? 

In  this  inquiry,  we  cannot  always  be  sure 
historically  of  the  exact  connection,  and,  for 
our  present  purpose,  this  is  not  of  prime 
importance.  But  we  can  see,  for  example, 
in  this  second  division  of  our  theme,  the 
relations  of  religion  and  the  social  conscious- 
ness, and  how  religion  must  be  conceived  if 
the  social  consciousness  is  fully  warranted ; 
and  this  is  the  main  question. 

If    the    definition    of    theology   which   has 

(53) 


54          THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

been  suggested  be  adopted  —  the  thoughtful 
and  unified  expression  of  what  religion  means 
to  us  —  then  it  is  obvious  that  any  change 
in  conception  or  emphasis  in  religion  will 
necessarily  affect  theological  statement.  Our 
inquiry  as  to  the  influence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness, therefore,  naturally  begins  with 
religion. 

The  discussions  of  this  division,  moreover, 
will  really  include  all  that  part  of  theological 
doctrine  which  has  to  do  with  the  growth 
into  the  life  with  God. 

The  natural  influence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness upon  the  conception  of  religion 
may  be,  perhaps,  summed  up  in  four  points, 
which  form  the  subjects  of  the  four  succeed- 
ing chapters:  (i)  The  social  consciousness 
tends  to  draw  religion  away  from  the  falsely 
mystical ;  (2)  it  tends  to  emphasize  the  per- 
sonal relation  in  religion,  and  so  keeps  the 
truly  mystical;  (3)  it  tends  to  emphasize  the 
ethical  in  religion ;  (4)  it  tends  to  empha- 
size the  concretely  historically  Christian  in 
religion. 


CHAPTER  V 

THE   OPPOSITION   OF   THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS   TO 
THE   FALSELY   MYSTICAL 

I.     WHAT    IS   THE    FALSELY    MYSTICAL? 

Two  very  clear  answers  made  from  diff- 
erent points  of  view  deserve  attention. 

i.  Nastfs  Definition. —  In  trying  to  set 
forth  the  "main  mood  and  motives  of  reli- 
gious speculation"  in  the  early  Christian 
centuries,  Professor  Nash  takes,  as  perhaps 
the  two  strongest  influences  in  determining 
the  type  of  man  to  whom  Christian  apolo- 
getics had  then  to  appeal,  Philo  and  Plotinus, 
and  says:  "By  what  road  shall  the  mind 
enter  into  a  deep  and  intimate  knowledge 
of  God?  That  is  the  decisive  question. 
Plotinus  the  Gentile  and  Philo  the  Jew  are 
at  one  in  their  answer.  The  reason  must 
rise  above  reasoning.  It  must  pass  into  a 
state  that  is  half  a  swoon  and  half  an  ecstasy 
before  it  can  truly  know  God.  Philo  gave 
up  for  the  sake  of  his  theory,  the  position  of 
the  prophets.  Plotinus,  for  the  same  theory, 

(55) 


56        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

forsook  the  position  of  Plato  and  Aristotle. 
The  prophets  conceived  the  inmost  essence 
of  things,  the  being  and  will  of  God,  as  a 
creative  and  redemptive  force  that  guided 
and  revealed  itself  through  the  career  of  a 
great  national  community.  Plato  and  Aris- 
totle conceived  the  essence  of  life  as  a  labor 
of  reason ;  and,  for  them,  the  labors  of  reason 
found  their  sufficient  refreshment  and  inspi- 
ration in  those  moments  of  clear  synthesis 
which  are  the  reward  of  patient  analysis. 
Revelation  came  to  the  prophet  through  his 
experience  of  history.  To  the  philosopher 
it  came  through  hard  and  steady  thinking. 
But  Philo  and  Plotinus  together  declared 
these  roads  to  be  no  thoroughfares.  The 
Greek  and  the  Jew  met  on  the  common 
ground  of  a  mysticism  that  sacrificed  the 
needs  of  sober  reason  and  the  needs  of  the 
nation  to  the  necessities  of  the  monk."1 
Mysticism  is  here  conceived  as  unethical, 
unhistorical,  and  unrational. 

2.  Herrmanrfs  Definition. — Herrmann's  defi- 
nition of  mysticism  is  the  second  one  to  which 
attention  is  directed.  He  says:  "When  the 
influence  of  God  upon  the  soul  is  sought  and 
found  solely  in  an  inward  experience  of  the 

1  Nash,  Ethics  and  Revelation,  p.  33. 


THE    OPPOSITION    TO    THE    MYSTICAL  57 

individual;  when  certain  excitements  of  the 
emotions  are  taken,  with  no  further  question, 
as  evidence  that  the  soul  is  possessed  by  God ; 
when,  at  the  same  time,  nothing  external  to 
the  soul  is  consciously  and  clearly  perceived 
and  firmly  grasped ;  when  no  thoughts  that 
elevate  the  spiritual  life  are  aroused  by  the 
positive  contents  of  an  idea  that  rules  the 
soul — then  that  is  the  piety  of  mysticism.  He 
who  seeks  in  this  wise  that  for  the  sake  of 
which  he  is  ready  to  abandon  all  beside,  has 
stepped  beyond  the  pale  of  Christian  piety. 
He  leaves  Christ  and  Christ's  Kingdom  alto- 
gether behind  him  when  he  enters  that  sphere 
of  experience  which  seems  to  him  to  be  the 
highest."1  The  marks  of  mysticism  for  Herr- 
mann, then,  are:  that  it  is  purely  subjective; 
that  it  is  merely  emotional  and  unethical ; 
and  hence  that  it  has  no  clear  object,  and 
is  abstract,  unrational,  unhistorical,  and  so 
unchristian. 

II.    THE  OBJECTIONS  OF  THE    SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS 
TO  THE   FALSELY  MYSTICAL 

Against  this  neo-platonic,  falsely  mystical 
conception  of  religion,  the  social  conscious- 
Herrmann,  The  Communion  of  the  Christian  (with  God,  pp.  19,  20. 


58         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

ness  seems  to  be  clearly  arrayed,  and,  so  far 
as  the  social  consciousness  influences  religion, 
it  will  certainly  tend  to  draw  it  away  from 
this  falsely  mystical  idea. 

1.  Unethical. — For,  in  the  first   place,  this 
neo-platonic  conception  of  religion  has  nothing 
distinctly  ethical  in  it.     The  ethical  is  mani- 
festly not  made  the  test  of  true  religious  ex- 
perience, as  it  is  in  the  New  Testament.     The 
social   consciousness,   on   the   other   hand,    is 
predominantly  and   emphatically  ethical,  and 
can   have    nothing   to    do  with  a  religion  in 
which   ethics   is  either  omitted   or  is  wholly 
subordinate.      At    this   point,    therefore,    the 
pressure  of  the  social  consciousness  is  strongly 
against  a  neo-platonic  mysticism. 

2.  Does  not  Give  a  Real  Personal  God. — In 
the    second   place,    the    social    consciousness 
cannot   get   along  with   the    falsely   mystical, 
because  it  does  not  give  a  real  personal  God. 
Let  us  be  clear  upon  this  point.     Is  not  Herr- 
mann right  when  he  says  that  all  that  can  be 
said  of  the  God  of  this  mysticism  is  "that  he 
is  not  the  world  ?    Now  that  is  precisely  all 
that  mysticism  has  ever  been  able  to  say  of 
God  as  it  conceives  him.     Plainly,  the  world 
and  the   conception  of  it  are  all  that   moves 
the  soul  while  it  thinks  thus  of   God.     Only 


THE    OPPOSITION    TO    THE    MYSTICAL  5Q 

disappointment  can  ensue  to  the  soul  whose 
yearning  for  God  in  such  case  keeps  on  in- 
sisting that  God  must  be  something  utterly 
different  from  the  world.  If  such  a  soul  will 
reflect  awhile  on  the  nature  of  the  God  thus 
reached,  the  fact  must  inevitably  come  to  the 
surface  that  its  whole  consciousness  is  occu- 
pied with  the  world  now  as  it  was  before,  for 
evidently  it  has  grasped  no  positive  ideas — 
nothing  but  negative  ideas — about  anything 
else.  Mysticism  frequently  passes  into  pan- 
theism for  this  very  reason,  even  in  men  of 
the  highest  religious  energy;  they  refuse  to 
be  satisfied  with  the  mere  longing  after  God, 
or  to  remain  on  the  way  to  him,  but  deter- 
mine to  reach  the  goal  itself,  and  rest  with 
GoJ  himself."1 

Now  we  have  already  seen  that  the  social 
consciousness  can  find  adequate  support  and 
power  and  motive  only  in  faith  that  its  pur- 
pose is  God's  purpose,  that  the  deepest  thing 
in  the  universe  is  an  ethical  purpose,  con- 
ceivable only  in  a  personal  God;  and,  there- 
fore, neither  an  empty  negation  nor  pantheism 
can  ever  satisfy  it. 

3.  Belittles  the  Personal  in  Man. — The  false 
mysticism,  moreover,  belittles  the  personal  in 

1  Herrmann,  Op.  «'/.,  p.  27. 


6O         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

man  as  well  as  in  God ;  for  it  does  not  treat 
with  real  reverence  either  the  personality,  the 
ethical  freedom,  the  sense  of  obligation,  or 
the  reason  of  man.  This  whole  thought  of 
"a  state  that  is  half  a  swoon  and  half  an  ec- 
stasy" is  a  sort  of  swamping  of  clear  self-con- 
sciousness and  definite  moral  initiative,  in 
which  the  very  reality  of  man's  personality 
consists.  It  is  a  heathen,  not  a  Christian,  idea 
of  inspiration  which  demands  the  suppression 
of  the  human,  whether  in  consciousness,  in 
will,  in  reason,  or  by  belittling  the  sense  of 
obligation  to  others.  But  mysticism  has  at 
least  tended  toward  failure  in  all  these 
respects. 

And  yet,  from  the  time  that  Paul  argued 
with  the  Corinthians  against  their  immense 
overestimation  of  the  gift  of  speaking  with 
tongues,  this  fascination  of  the  merely  mysti- 
cal has  been  felt  in  Christianity,  (i)  The 
very  mystery  and  unintelligibility  of  the  expe- 
rience, (2)  its  ecstatic  emotion,  (3)  its  sense 
of  being  controlled  by  a  power  beyond  one's 
self,  and  (4)  its  contrast  with  ordinary  life — all 
these  elements  make  the  mystical  experience 
seem  to  most  all  the  more  divine,  although  in 
so  judging  they  are  applying  a  pagan,  not  a 
Christian,  standard.  So  far  as  these  experi- 


THE    OPPOSITION    TO    THE     MYSTICAL  6l 

ences  have  value,  it  is  probably  due  to  the 
strong  and  realistic  sense  which  they  give  of 
being  in  the  presence  of  an  overpowering 
being.  If  thoroughly  permeated  and  domi- 
nated with  other  elements,  this  sense  is  not 
without  its  value. 

But  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that,  although 
Paul  does  not  deny  the  legitimacy  of  the  gift 
of  speaking  with  tongues,  he  nevertheless 
absolutely  subordinates  it,  and  insists  that  the 
most  ecstatic  religious  emotions  are  com- 
pletely worthless  without  love.  Evidently  the 
considerations  which  weighed  most  with  the 
Corinthians  in  valuing  the  gift  of  unintelli- 
gible ecstatic  utterance  weighed  little  with 
Paul ;  and  one  can  see  how  Paul  implicitly 
argues  against  each  of  those  considerations : 
(i)  God  is  not  an  unknown,  mystic  force,  but 
the  definite,  concrete  God  of  character,  shown 
in  Christ.  (2)  He  speaks  to  reason  and  will 
as  well  as  to  feeling,  and  he  best  speaks  to 
feeling  when  he  speaks  to  the  whole  man. 
True  religious  emotion  must  have  a  rational 
basis  and  must  move  to  duty.  (3)  Religion,  he 
would  urge,  is  a  self-controlled  and  voluntary 
surrender  to  a  personal  God  of  character,  not 
a  passive  being  swept  away  by  an  unknown 
emotion.  (4)  God  has  most  to  give,  be  as- 


62         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

sured,  he  would  have  added,  in  the  common 
ways  of  life. 

Now,  in  every  one  of  these  protests,  the 
social  consciousness  instinctively  joins.  It 
cannot  rest  in  a  conception  of  religion  that 
belittles  the  personal  in  God  or  man ;  for  it  is 
itself  an  emphatic  insistence  upon  the  fully 
personal.  And  it  can,  least  of  all,  get  on  with 
the  mystical  ignoring  of  the  rational  and  the 
ethical,  for  it  holds  that  the  social  evolution 
moves  steadily  on  to  a  rational  like-mind- 
edness,  and  to  a  definitely  ethical  civilization. 
Giddings  puts  the  sociological  conclusion  in  a 
sentence:  "It  is  the  rational,  ethical  con- 
sciousness that  maintains  social  cohesion  in  a 
progressive  democracy."1  Now  that  which  is 
clearly  recognized  as  the  goal  in  the  relations 
of  man  to  man  will  not  be  set  aside  as  unwar- 
ranted or  subordinate  in  the  relations  of  man 
to  God.  And  we  may  depend  upon  it. 

4.  Leaves  the  Historically,  Concretely  Chris- 
tian.— Once  more,  the  social  consciousness 
cannot  approve  of  the  mystical  conception  of 
religion  in  its  ignoring,  in  its  highest  state, 
the  historically  and  concretely  Christian. 
With  mysticism's  subjective,  emotional,  and 

1  Giddings,  Elements  of  Sociology,  p.  321;  cf.  also  pp.  155  ff, 
302,  320,  327. 


THE     OPPOSITION     TO    THE     MYSTICAL  63 

abstract  conception  of  the  highest  communion 
with  God,  and  of  the  way  thereto,  the  histori- 
cal and  concrete  at  best  can  be  to  it  only  sub- 
ordinate means,  more  or  less  mysteriously 
connected  with  the  attainment  of  the  goal, 
and  left  behind  when  once  the  goal  is 
reached. 

The  social  consciousness,  on  the  other 
hand,  requires  historical  justification,  and 
definitely  builds  on  the  facts  of  the  historical 
social  evolution. 

In  the  case  of  the  prophets  and  psalmists, 
for  example,  who  alone  in  the  ancient  world 
most  fully  anticipated  the  modern  social  feel- 
ing, the  social  consciousness  plainly  arose  in  the 
face  of  the  concrete  historical  life  of  a  people. 
No  result  of  modern  Old  Testament  criticism 
is  more  certain.  So  that,  speaking  of  "the 
religious  aspects  of  the  social  struggle  in 
Israel,"  McCurdy  can  use  this  strong  lan- 
guage: "It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  this 
conflict,  intense,  uninterrupted,  and  pro- 
longed, is  the  very  heart  of  the  religion  of 
the  Old  Testament,  its  most  regenerative  and 
propulsive  movement.  To  the  personal  life 
of  the  soul,  the  only  basis  of  a  potential, 
world-moving  religion,  it  gave  energy  and 
depth,  assurance  and  hopefulness,  repose  and 


64         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

self-control,  with  an  outlook  clear  and  eter- 
nal."1 But  it  was  this  standpoint  of  the 
prophets  that  the  falsely  mystical  conception 
of  religion  abandoned.  We  may  well  take  to 
heart,  in  our  estimate  of  mysticism,  the  grad- 
ual but  steady  elimination  of  ecstasy  in  the 
development  of  Israel,  and  its  practically  total 
absence  in  those  we  count  in  the  highest  sense 
prophets.2 

The  social  consciousness,  moreover,  has 
almost  entirely  to  do  with  men,  and  hence 
naturally  must  lay  stress  on  human  history, 
rather  than  on  nature,  as  a  source  of  religious 
ideas.  Indeed,  it  will  have  no  doubt  that  what 
nature  is  made  to  mean  religiously  will  be 
chiefly  determined  by  the  prevalent  social 
ideals.  It  can,  therefore,  least  of  all  ignore 
the  historical  in  Christianity. 

The  social  consciousness  recognizes  in- 
creasingly, too,  with  the  clearing  of  its  own 
ideals  and  with  the  deepening  study  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus,  that  it  really  is  only  de- 
manding, in  the  concrete,  and  in  detailed  ap- 
plication to  particular  problems,  and  to  all  of 

1  McCurdy,  History,  Prophecy,  and  the  Monuments,  Vol.  II,  p. 
223;  cf.  pp.  214,  ff. 

2  G.  A.  Smith,  The  Book  of  the  Twelve  Prophets,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
30,  84,  89;  Cornill,  The  Prophets  of  Israel,  pp.  41,46;   The  Exposi- 
tory Times,  Jan.,  Feb.,  1902,  article,  Prophetic  Ecstasy. 


THE    OPPOSITION    TO    THE     MYSTICAL  65 

them,  the  spirit  shown  in  its  fullness  only  in 
Christ,  as  Professor  Peabody's  eminently  sane 
treatment  of  the  social  teaching  of  Jesus 
seems  to  me  fairly  to  have  proven.  The  so- 
cial consciousness,  therefore,  cannot  help 
becoming  more  and  more  consciously  and 
emphatically  Christian. 

In  a  single  sentence,  because  of  the  steps 
of  its  own  long  evolution,  the  social  con- 
sciousness instinctively  distrusts  the  highly 
emotional,  unless  it  is  manifestly  under 
equally  strong  rational  control,  and  unless 
it  has  equal  ethical  insight  and  power,  and  is 
historically  justified.  It  tends,  therefore,  nec- 
essarily to  draw  away  from  the  falsely  mysti- 
cal in  religion,  which  is  lacking  in  all  these 
respects. 

And  the  same  reasons,  which  array  the  so- 
cial consciousness  against  the  falsely  mystical 
in  religion,  lead  it  into  natural  sympathy  with 
a  positive  emphasis  upon  the  personal,  the 
ethical,  and  the  historically  concretely  Chris- 
tian in  religion. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  EMPHASIS  OF  THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS   UPON 

rHE  PERSONAL  RELATION  IN  RELIGION,  AND 

SO    UPON  rHE  TRULY  MYSTICAL 

I.    THE  SOCIAL  CONSCIOUSNESS  TENDS  POSITIVELY 
TO   EMPHASIZE  THE   PERSONAL  RELA- 
TION  IN    RELIGION 

I.  Emphasizes  Everywhere  the  Personal. — The 
social  consciousness  sees  man  as  preeminently 
the  social  animal,  made  for  personal  relations, 
irrevocably  and  essentially  knit  up  with  other 
persons.  It  deepens  everywhere  our  sense  of 
persons  and  of  personal  relations.  It  may  be 
itself  almost  defined  as  the  sense  of  the  fully 
personal. 

Religion,  then,  if  it  is  to  be  most  real  to 
men  of  the  social  consciousness,  must  be  per- 
sonally conceived,  that  is,  must  be  distinctly 
seen  to  be  a  personal  relation  of  man  to  God. 
And  this  conception,  as  the  highest  we  can 
reach,  is  to  be  followed  fearlessly  to  the  end; 
only  guarding  it  against  wrong  inferences 
from  the  simple  transference  to  God  of  finite 
conditions,  and  recognizing  exactly  in  what 

(66) 


THE     EMPHASIS    UPON     THE     TRULY    MYSTICAL         67 

respects  the  personal  relation  to  God  is 
unique.1 

The  social  consciousness,  moreover,  as  we 
have  seen,  must  have  a  conception  of  religion 
that  can  really  justify  the  social  consciousness, 
and,  therefore,  must  do  justice  to  the  fully 
personal  in  God  and  man;  and  this  need 
also  leads  the  social  consciousness  naturally 
to  the  conception  of  religion  as  a  personal 
relation. 

2.  Requires  the  Laws  of  a  Deepening  Friend- 
ship in  Religion  — When  this  conception  is 
carried  out,  it  is  found  that  growth  in  the 
religious  life,  in  communion  'with  God,  fol- 
lows the  laws  of  a  deepening  friendship.2 
These  laws  can,  therefore,  be  known  and 
studied  and  formulated;  and  religion,  at  the 
same  time,  ceases  to  be  unintelligible  and 
ceases  to  be  isolated  —  cut  off  from  the  rest 
of  life,  and  becomes  rather  that  one  great 
fundamental  relation  which  gives  being  and 
meaning  and  value  to  all  the  rest.  In  abso- 
lute harmony,  then,  with  the  genesis  of  the 
social  consciousness,  religion,  in  this  concep- 
tion, is  bound  up  with  the  whole  of  life;  and 
we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  real  and  final  unity 

1  Cf.  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  p.  201  ff. 

2  Op.  at.,  pp.  210  ff. 


68          THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  life  in  true  love,  the  relation  to  God  and 
the  relation  to  man  each  helping  everywhere 
the  other.  If  religion  is  truly  a  personal  rela- 
tion, and  its  laws  are  those  of  a  deepening 
friendship,  then  every  human  relation,  heart- 
ily and  truly  fulfilled,  becomes  a  new  outlook 
on  God,  a  revelation  of  new  possibilities  in 
the  religious  life.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
in  that  mutual  self-revelation  and  answering 
trust  upon  which  every  growing  personal  re- 
lation is  built,  every  fresh  revelation  of  God 
is  an  enlarging  of  our  ideal  for  our  relations 
to  others.  Even  biblical  literature,  perhaps, 
furnishes  no  more  perfect  example  of  the 
interplay  of  the  human  and  divine  relations 
than  Hosea's  account  of  his  own  providential 
leading  through  the  human  relation  into  the 
divine,  and  back  again  from  the  divine  to  a 
still  better  human. 

3.  Requires  the  Ideal  Conditions  of  the  Rich- 
est Life  in  Religion. — And  if  religion  is  to  be 
justified  in  its  supreme  claims  by  the  social 
consciousness,  it  must  be  felt  to  offer,  besides, 
the  ideal  conditions  of  the  richest  life.  As 
a  personal  relation  to  God,  religion  need  not 
shrink  from  this  test.  Our  great  needs  are 
character  and  happiness.  Psychology  seems 
to  me  to  point  to  two  great  means  and  to 


THE     EMPHASIS    UPON    THE    TRULY    MYSTICAL        69 

two  accompanying  conditions  of  both  char- 
acter and  happiness.  The  means  are  associa- 
tion and  work ;  the  corresponding  conditions 
are  reverence  for  personality,  and  objectivity 
—  the  mood  of  both  love  and  work.  The 
great  essentials,  therefore,  to  the  richest  life 
are  (i)  association  in  which  personality  is  re- 
spected, and  (2)  work  in  which  one  can  lose 
himself.  Now,  when  would  these  conditions 
become  ideal?  On  the  one  hand,  as  to  asso- 
ciation, when  the  association  is  with  him 
who  is  of  the  highest  character  and  of  the 
infinitely  richest  life,  and  relation  to  whom  is 
fundamental  to  every  other  personal  relation; 
when,  secondly,  God  is  made  concrete  and 
real  to  us  in  an  adequate  personal  revelation 
of  his  character,  and  of  his  love  toward  us; 
and  when,  third,  the  association  is  individual- 
ized for  each  one,  who  throws  himself  open 
to  God,  in  God's  spiritual  presence  in  us, 
constantly  and  intimately,  and  yet  unobtrusively, 
cooperating  with  us.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  to  work,  when  the  work  is  God-given  work, 
to  which  one  is  set  apart,  and  in  which  he 
may  lose  himself  with  joy.  These  are  the 
ideal  conditions  of  the  richest  life.  Just  these 
ideal  conditions  Jesus  declared  actualities. 
For  the  fulfilment  of  just  these,  in  the  case 


70         THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  his  disciples,  he  prayed  in  his  double  peti- 
tion,— " Keep  them,"  " Sanctify  them."  "  Keep 
them  in  thy  name,"  that  is,  through  the  di- 
vine association.  "Sanctify  them" — set  them 
apart  unto  their  God-given  work.  "As  thou 
hast  sent  me  into  the  world,  even  so  have  I 
also  sent  them  into  the  world."  Such  a  con- 
ception of  religion  can  fairly  claim  to  meet, 
broadly  and  deeply,  the  most  exacting  de- 
mands of  the  social  consciousness  for  emphasis 
upon  the  personal  relation  in  religion. 


II.    THE    SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS   THUS    KEEPS   THE 
TRULY   MYSTICAL 

I  have  no  predilection  for  the  term  mysti- 
cal, and  would  gladly  confine  it  to  what  I 
have  termed  the  neo-platonic  or  falsely  mys- 
tical, were  it  not  that,  in  spite  of  the  diction- 
aries and  the  histories  of  philosophy  and  the 
histories  of  doctrine,  the  term  is  used  in  two 
quite  different  senses.  Many,  it  seems  to 
me,  are  defending  what  they  call  the  mystical 
in  religion,  who  have  no  idea  of  defending 
what  Herrmann  and  Nash  call  mystical.  And 
many,  on  the  other  hand,  are  defending  and 
teaching  the  falsely  mystical  through  an  un- 
defined fear  that  else  they  will  lose  the  truly 


THE     EMPHASIS     UPON     THE     TRULY    MYSTICAL         71 

mystical.  Theology  and  religion  both  greatly 
need  a  clear  discrimination  of  terms  here. 
Many  are  involved,  in  both  living  and  think- 
ing, in  a  self-contradiction,  which  they  feel 
but  cannot  state ;  and  are  urging  with  them- 
selves and  with  others  a  means  of  religious 
life  and  a  corresponding  method  of  concep- 
tion, which  really  contradict  their  highest 
convictions  in  other  lines  of  life  and  thought. 
Can  we  find  our  way  out  of  this  confusion? 

If  one  studies  carefully  the  historical  rep- 
resentatives of  mysticism,  and  especially  such 
a  strong  type  as  Jacob  Bohme,  whom  Erd- 
mann  calls  the  "culmination  of  mysticism," 
and  still  keeps  his  head,  certain  dangers  in 
mysticism,  it  would  seem,  must  become  appa- 
rent. And.  it  may  be  worth  while  to  attempt 
a  brief,  but  definite,  analysis  of  the  justifiable 
and  unjustifiable  elements  in  these  mystical 
movements. 

i.  The  Justifiable  and  Unjustifiable  Elements 
in  Mysticism. —  (i)  The  first  danger  in  mysti- 
cism seems  to  me  to  be  the  tendency  to 
make  simple  emotion  the  supreme  test  of 
the  religious  state.  Whether  this  emotion 
is  thought  of  as  ecstatic  —  such  as  some  of 
the  old  mystics  called  "  being  drunk  with 
God,"  or,  as  quietistic — in  which  imperturba- 


72         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

bility,  passionlessness,  become  the  highest 
good — is  comparatively  indifferent.  The  jus- 
tifiable element  here  is  the  insistence  that 
religion  is  real  and  is  life ;  for  feeling  is  per- 
haps the  most  powerful  element  in  the  sense 
of  reality.  So  James  says:  "Speaking  gen- 
erally, the  more  a  conceived  object  excites 
us,  the  more  reality  it  has."1  The  unjusti- 
fiable element  is  the  perilous  subjection  of 
the  rational  and  ethical.  Such  a  view  must 
always  lack  any  positive  and  adequate  con- 
ception of  our  active  life  and  vocation  in 
the  world. 

(2)  A    second    closely    connected    danger 
in    mysticism    is    the    tendency   toward    mere 
subjectivism.     There  is  here  a  justifiable  ele- 
ment in  the  emphasis  on  one's  own  personal 
conviction  and  faith ;  an  unjustifiable  element 
in  the    tendency   to   underrate    anything   but 
the   purely  subjective,  to  ignore  all   correct- 
ing influences  from  others,  from  the  church, 
and  from  the  Scriptures. 

(3)  A  third  danger  follows  from  this:  the 
marked    tendency  to    underestimate    the    his- 
torical.     The     justifiable     element    here     is, 
again,  the  emphasis    on   personal   conviction 
and    faith;    the    unjustifiable    element   is   the 

1  James,  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  307. 


THE   EMPHASIS   UPON   THE   TRULY  MYSTICAL      73 

tendency  toward  the  greatest  one-sidedness, 
and  toward  emptiness,  especially  of  ethical 
content.  Advising  our  young  people  simply 
to  "listen  to  God,"  without  the  strongest  in- 
sistence upon  the  historical  revelation  of  God 
at  the  same  time,  is  exposing  them  to  the 
great  danger  of  mistaking  for  an  indubitable, 
divine  revelation  the  veriest  vagary  that  may 
chance  in  their  empty- mindedness  next  to 
come  into  their  thought.  With  the  reason  in 
supposed  abeyance,  the  door  is  thus  thrown 
open  to  the  grossest  superstitions.  Honest 
attempts  to  deepen  the  religious  life  may 
thus  become  dangerous  assaults  upon  true 
religion. 

(4)  A   fourth  danger   in   mysticism   is   so 
strong  a  tendency  toward  vagueness,  that  the 
common    mind    is    not    without    warrant    in 
identifying    mysticism    and    mistiness.      The 
justifiable   element   here  is  in  the    real   diffi- 
culty of   expressing   the    full   content  of   the 
entire  religious  experience ;   the  unjustifiable 
element  is,  once  more,  the  slighting  of  the 
historical,  the  ethical,  and  the  rational,  espe- 
cially in  talking  much  of  the  contradictions 
of    reason,    and    of    what    is    above     reason. 
Mysticism  naturally  lacks  positive  content. 

(5)  Another  danger — the  tendency  toward 


74         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

pantheism  —  comes  in  partly,  as  Herrmann 
has  suggested,  as  a  meeting  of  this  lack  of 
content,  and  partly  as  the  logical  outcome  of 
such  an  insistence  upon  losing  oneself  in 
God  as  amounts  to  a  being  swept  out  of 
one's  self  —  a  loss  of  clear  and  rational  self- 
consciousness,  which  is  next  interpreted  spec- 
ulatively  as  a  real  absorption  in  God,  and  is 
then  made  the  goal.  This  is  the  familiar 
road  of  Indian  and  neo-platonic  mysticism, 
and  its  phenomena  are  real  enough,  but 
probably  of  only  the  slightest  religious  sig- 
nificance. Tennyson  tells  somewhere  of  the 
immense  sense  of  illumination  that  came  to 
him  once  from  simply  repeating  monoto- 
nously his  own  name — "Alfred  Tennyson, 
Alfred  Tennyson."  This  may  be  as  effec- 
tive as  looking  at  the  end  of  one's  nose  and 
ceaselessly  reiterating  "Om,"  as  does  the  Hindu 
ascetic.  A  still  shorter  and  more  certain 
method  is  through  nitrous-oxide-gas  intoxica- 
tion, of  which  Professor  James  says:  "With 
me,  as  with  every  other  person  of  whom  I 
have  heard,  the  key-note  of  the  experience  is 
the  tremendously  exciting  sense  of  an  intense 
metaphysical  illumination.  Truth  lies  open 
to  the  view  in  depth  beneath  depth  of  almost 
blinding  evidence.  The  mind  sees  all  the 


THE     EMPHASIS    UPON    THE    TRULY    MYSTICAL         75 

logical  relations  of  being  with  an  apparent 
subtlety  and  instantaneity,  to  which  its  nor- 
mal consciousness  offers  no  parallel;  only  as 
sobriety  returns,  the  feeling  of  insight  fades, 
and  one  is  left  staring  vacantly  at  a  few  dis- 
jointed words  and  phrases  as  one  stares  at  a 
cadaverous -looking  snow -peak  from  which 
the  sunset  glow  has  just  fled,  or  at  the  black 
cinder  left  by  an  extinguished  brand."  "The 
immense  emotional  sense  of  reconciliation," 
he  felt  to  be  the  characteristic  mood.  "It 
is  impossible  to  convey,"  he  says,  "an  idea 
of  the  torrential  character  of  the  identifica- 
tion of  opposites  as  it  streams  through  the 
mind  in  this  experience."1 

Now  it  is  not  safe  to  ignore  such  facts, 
when  we  are  seriously  trying  to  estimate  the 
religious  significance  of  intense  emotional 
experiences,  the  reality  of  which  we  need 
not  at  all  question.  The  vital  question  is, 
not  that  of  the  reality  of  the  experiences, 
but  that  of  the  real  cause  of  the  experiences ; 
and  the  only  possible  test  of  this  is  rational 
and  ethical.  But  from  this  test,  mysticism 
tends  from  the  start  to  shut  itself  off,  and 
so,  assuming  the  experience  to  be  truly 
religious,  ends  often  in  virtual  pantheism 

1  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  294,  295. 


76         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  justifiable  element  in  this  insistence 
upon  absorption  in  God  is  the  necessary 
moral  relation  of  complete  surrender  to  God. 
The  unjustifiable  element  is  in  belittling  the 
personal  in  both  God  and  man,  and  in  mak- 
ing essentially  religious  an  experience  that 
has  almost  nothing  of  the  rational  and  ethi- 
cal in  it,  and  that,  on  that  very  account,  fos- 
ters the  irreverent  familiarity  with  Christ  so 
deplored  by  more  than  one  careful  student 
of  mysticism.  A  natural  and  common  and 
most  dangerous  accompaniment  of  such  an 
intense  emotional  experience  is  the  tendency 
afterward,  to  excuse  sin  in  oneself.  In  the 
case  of  the  most  conscientious,  it  is  worth 
noting,  such  an  emphasis  upon  intense  ex- 
periences tends  to  lead  them  to  distrust  the 
reality  of  the  normal  Christian  experience  if 
they  have  not  had  these  intense  emotions,  or 
if  they  have  had  them,  tends  to  bring  them 
into  despair  when  they  find  these  marked 
experiences  actually  proving  less  powerful  in 
effects  upon  life  than  they  had  expected. 

(6)  The  last  danger  in  mysticism,  to  which 
reference  will  be  made,  is  the  tendency  to 
extravagant  symbolism.  This  is  closely  con- 
nected with  "the  immense  emotional  sense 
of  reconciliation,"  and  is  much  stronger  by 


THE     EMPHASIS     UPON     THE     TRULY     MYSTICAL         77 

nature  in  some  than  in  others.  The  born 
mystic  finds  his  own  subjective  views  symbo- 
lized everywhere,  and  is  in  grave  danger  of 
being  led  into  an  ingenious,  practically  un- 
conscious intellectual  dishonesty.  The  justi- 
fiable element  here  is  that  sense  of  the  unity 
and  worth  of  things  which  is  the  most 
fundamental  conviction  of  our  minds.  The 
unjustifiable  element  has  been  sufficiently 
indicated. 

The  justifiable  elements  in  mysticism,  then, 
may  be  said  to  include :  the  insistence  on  the 
legitimate  place  of  feeling  in  religion  as  a 
real  and  vital  experience;  the  emphasis  on 
one's  own  conviction  and  faith ;  the  real  diffi- 
culty of  expressing  the  full  meaning  of  the 
religious  experience ;  the  demand  for  a  com- 
plete ethical  surrender  to  God ;  and  the  faith 
in  the  real  unity  and  worth  of  the  world  in 
God.  Now  if  one  tries  to  bring  together 
these  justifiable  elements  in  mysticism,  the 
truly  mystical  may  all  be  summed  up  as 
simply  a  protest  in  favor  of  the  whole  man  — 
the  entire  personality.  It  says  that  men  can 
experience  and  live  and  feel  and  do  much 
more  than  they  can  logically  formulate,  de- 
fine, explain,  or  even  fully  express.  Living 
is  more  than  thinking. 


78         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

2.  The  Protest  in  Favor  of  the  Whole  Man. — 
The  element  to  which  mysticism  has  tried 
most  to  do  justice  is  feeling,  and  so  it  has 
been  liable  to  a  new  and  dangerous  one-sid- 
edness.  But  the  truly  mystical  must  be  a 
protest  alike  against  a  narrow  juiceless  intel- 
lectualism,  against  a  narrow  moralistic  rigor- 
ism, and  against  a  blind  and  spineless  senti- 
mentalism.  It  is  a  protest  particularly  against 
making  the  mathematico-mechanical  view  of 
the  world  the  only  view;  against  making 
logical  consistency  the  sole  test  of  truth  or 
reality;  against  ignoring  all  data,  except  those 
which  come  through  the  intellect  alone ;  that 
is,  against  trying  to  make  a  part,  not  the 
whole,  of  man  the  standard;  in  other  words, 
against  ignoring  the  data  which  come  through 
feeling  and  will — emotional,  aesthetic,  ethical, 
and  religious  data,  as  well  as  those  judgments 
of  worth  which  underlie  reason's  theoretical 
determinations. 

Man  stands,  in  fact,  everywhere  face  to 
face  with  an  actual  world  of  great  complex- 
ity, that  seems  to  him  at  first  what  James  says 
the  baby's  world  is,  "one  big  blooming  buz- 
zing confusion;"  "and  the  universe  of  all  of 
us  is  still  to  a  great  extent  such  a  confusion, 
potentially  resolvable,  and  demanding  to  be 


THE     EMPHASIS     UPON     THE     TRULY     MYSTICAL         7Q 

resolved,  but  not  yet  actually  resolved,  into 
parts."1  In  one  sense,  man's  whole  task  is 
to  think  unity  and  order  into  this  confusion. 
The  problem  really  becomes  that  of  think- 
ing the  universe  through  in  several  kinds  of 
terms,  and  then  finally  bringing  all  together 
into  one  comprehensive  view.  All  these  are 
alike  ideals  which  the  mind  sets  before  itself. 
The  easiest  of  these  problems  is  the  attempt 
to  think  the  world  through,  in  mathematico- 
mechanical  terms.  But  the  attempt  to  think 
the  world  through  in  aesthetic  or  ethical  or 
religious  terms  is  equally  legitimate,  though 
it  is  more  difficult.  Not  only,  then,  is  the 
mathematico-mechanical  view  not  the  sole 
justifiable  view,  but  it  really  has  its  justifica- 
tion in  an  ideal,  and  success  in  this  attempt 
affords  just  encouragement  for  the  hope  of 
success  in  the  other  more  difficult  problems.2 
The  truly  mystical  holds,  then,  that  the 
narrow  intellectualism  is  unwarranted,  be- 
cause natural  science,  the  mechanical  view 
of  the  world,  is  itself  an  ideal  —  the  "child 
of  duties,"  as  Miinsterberg  calls  it  —  and  so 
cannot  legitimately  rule  out  other  ideals; 

1  Psychology,  Briefer  Course,  p.  16. 

2  Cf .  James,  Psychology,  Vol.    II,  633-677;    especially  633,  634, 
667,  671,  677;  Miinsterberg,  Psychology  and  Life,  pp.  23-28. 


80          THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

because  we  have  just  as  immediate  a  convic- 
tion concerning  the  worth,  as  concerning  the 
logical  consistency  of  the  world ;  because  a 
narrow  intellectualism  would  make  conscious 
life  but  a  "barren  rehearsal"  of  the  outer 
world,  without  significance;  because  if  we 
can  trust  the  indications  of  our  intellect,  we 
ought  to  be  able  to  trust  the  indications  of 
the  rest  of  our  nature ;  and  because,  thus,  the 
only  possible  key  and  standard  of  truth  and 
reality  are  in  ourselves — the  whole  self,  and 
"necessities  of  thought"  become  necessities 
of  a  reason  which  means  loyally  to  take  ac- 
count of  all  the  data  of  the  entire  man. 

And  the  same  point  may  be  thus  stated. 
We  use  the  word  rational  in  two  quite  distinct 
senses:  in  the  narrow  sense,  as  meaning  simply 
the  intellectual;  in  the  broad  sense,  as  indicat- 
ing the  demands  of  the  entire  man.  The  true 
mysticism  stands  for  the  broadly  rational. 

So,  too,  we  speak  of  the  necessary  funda- 
mental assumption  of  the  honesty  or  sincerity 
of  the  world ;  but  this  includes  two  quite 
distinct  propositions :  one,  that  the  world 
must  be  thinkable,  conceivable,  construable, 
a  logically  consistent  whole,  a  sphere  for  ra- 
tional thinking, — where  the  test  is  consistency; 
the  other,  that  the  world  must  be  worth  while, 


THE     EMPHASIS     UPON     THE     TRULY     MYSTICAL         8 1 

must  not  mock  our  highest  ideals  and  aspira- 
tions, must  in  some  true  and  genuine  sense 
satisfy  the  whole  man,  be  a  sphere  for  rational 
living, — where  the  test  is  worth.  All  our 
arguments  go  forward  upon  these  two  as- 
sumptions. Now,  a  true  mysticism  contends 
that  the  second  principle  is  as  rational  as  the 
first,  though  it  must  be  freely  granted  that  it 
is  not  as  easy  to  employ  it  for  detailed  con- 
clusions, and  it  is  consequently  much  more 
liable  to  abuse.  The  true  mysticism  wishes 
to  be  not  less,  but  more,  rational.  It  knows 
no  shorthand  substitute  for  the  hard  and 
steady  thinking  of  the  philosopher,  or  for 
the  historical  experience  of  the  prophet;  it 
needs  and  uses  both. 

In  all  this,  it  is  plain  that  the  truly  mystical 
is  a  legitimate  outgrowth  of  the  emphasis 
of  the  social  consciousness  upon  recognition 
of  the  entire  personality.  Phillips  Brooks 
finds  just  this  in  the  intellectual  life  of  Jesus. 
"The  great  fact  concerning  it  is  this,"  he  says, 
"that  in  him  the  intellect  never  works  alone. 
You  never  can  separate  its  workings  from  the 
complete  operation  of  the  entire  nature.  He 
never  simply  knows,  but  always  loves  and 
resolves  at  the  same  time."1 

Brooks,  The  Influence  of  Jesus,  p.  219. 


82         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

3.  The  Self-Controlled  Recognition  of  Emo- 
tion.—  Moreover,  it  probably  may  be  fairly 
claimed  that  all  of  the  mystical  recognition 
of  the  emotional  which  is  valuable  or  even 
legitimate,  is  preserved,  and  far  more  safely 
and  sanely  conceived,  in  a  strictly  personal 
conception  of  religion.  It  may  well  be 
doubted,  if  it  is  possible  in  any  other  way, 
both  to  do  justice  to  feeling  in  religion,  and 
at  the  same  time  to  keep  feeling  in  its  proper 
place.  Is  it  possible  briefly  to  indicate  both 
the  recognition  of  emotion  and  the  control 
of  emotion  in  religion  ? 

The  true  mysticism  recognizes  that  the 
supreme  joy  is  "joy  in  personal  life" — joy  in 
entering  into  the  revelation  of  a  person ;  and 
it  believes  with  reason  that  a  growing  ac- 
quaintance with  God  must  have  such  heights 
and  depths  of  meaning  as  no  other  personal 
relation  can  have.  It  is  not,  therefore,  afraid 
or  distrustful  of  true  emotion — of  joy  or 
peace,  of  intense  longing  or  of  keen  satisfac- 
tion— in  the  religious  life. 

But  the  true  mysticism  knows  at  the  same 
time  that  deep  revelation  of  a  person  is  made 
only  to  the  reverent,  that  the  conditions  are 
in  the  highest  degree  ethical,  and  above  all 
must  be  recognized  to  be  so  in  religion.  It 


THE    EMPHASIS    UPON    THE     TRULY    MYSTICAL         83 

does  view,  then,  with  deep  distrust  an  emo- 
tional emphasis  in  religion  that  ignores  the 
ethical.  It  cannot  forget  that  Christ  thought 
that  everything  must  be  tested  by  its  fruits  in 
life.  Paul,  too,  insisted  on  applying  the  test 
of  an  active  ministering  love  to  the  highly 
valued  emotional  experiences  of  the  Cor- 
inthians ;  and  writes  to  the  Galatians  that 
there  is  but  one  infallible  proof  of  the 
working  of  the  Spirit  in  them  —  a  right- 
eous life:  "love,  joy,  peace,  longsuffering, 
gentleness,  goodness,  faith,  meekness,  tem- 
perance." 

And  a  true  mysticism  knows  that  the  spirit, 
reverent  of  personality,  leads  to  a  self-restraint 
that  does  not  seek  the  emotional  experience 
simply  as  such  on  any  conditions ;  but,  know- 
ing the  supreme  psychological  conditions  of 
happiness  and  character  and  influence,  it  loses 
itself  in  an  unselfish  love  and  in  absorbing 
work,  and  understands  that  it  must  simply  let 
the  experiences  come.  It  will  have  nothing, 
therefore,  to  do  with  strained  emotion,  or 
with  the  working  up  of  feeling  for  its  own 
sake.  It  seeks  health,  not  merely  the  signs 
of  health.  It  prizes,  therefore,  the  joy  that 
simply  proclaims  itself  as  the  sign  of  the  nor- 
mal life  and  so  positively  strengthens  and 


84         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

cheers,  but  it  will  have  nothing  of  the  strain 
of  emotion  which  is  drain. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  it  is  exactly 
this  true  psychological  attitude  concerning 
the  emotional  life  that  Phillips  Brooks  be- 
lieved that  he  found  perfectly  reflected  in 
Jesus.  "The  sensitiveness  of  Jesus  to  pain 
and  joy,"  he  says,  "never  leads  him  for  a 
moment  to  try  to  be  sad  or  happy  with  direct 
endeavor;  nor,  is  there  any  sign  that  he  ever 
judges  the  real  character  of  himself  or  any 
other  man  by  the  sadness  or  the  happiness 
that  for  the  moment  covers  his  life.  He 
simply  lives,  and  joy  and  sorrow  issue  from 
his  living,  and  cast  their  brightness  and  their 
gloominess  back  upon  his  life ;  but  there  is 
no  sorrow  and  no  joy  that  he  ever  sought  for 
itself,  and  he  always  kept  a  self-knowledge 
underneath  the  joy  or  sorrow,  undisturbed 
by  the  moment's  happiness  or  unhappiness."1 

How  far  from  this  objectivity  and  this 
healthful  emotional  life  is  the  atmosphere  of 
most  of  our  devotional  books,  and,  one  might 
say,  of  all  the  manuals  of  ordinary  mysticism ! 
That  this  difficulty  should  confront  us  in 
devotional  literature  is  very  natural ;  for  such 
writing  commonly  aims  to  give  the  emotional 

1  The  Influence  of  Jesus,  p.  156. 


THE     EMPHASIS     UPON    THE     TRULY    MYSTICAL         85 

sense  of  reality  in  religion ;  and  is,  therefore, 
particularly  under  the  temptation  to  show 
and  to  produce  a  straining  after  the  emotion, 
as  for  its  own  sake.  Moreover,  the  very  intro- 
spection, almost  inevitably  involved  in  the 
reading  and  writing  of  devotional  books, 
tends  to  bring  about  an  artificial  change  in 
the  religious  experience,  and  so  to  introduce 
into  it  the  abnormal. 

But  the  social  consciousness,  so  far  as  it 
affects  religion,  not  only  tends  to  draw  away 
from  the  falsely  mystical,  and  to  emphasize 
the  personal,  and  so  to  keep  the  truly  mysti- 
cal, but  it  is  even  more  plain  that  it  must 
tend  to  insist  upon  the  ethical  in  religion. 


CHAPTER    VII 

THE    THOROUGH   ETHICIZING    OF   RELIGION 
I.    THE    PRESSURE    OF    THE    PROBLEM 

THE  social  consciousness  looks  to  the  thor- 
ough ethicizing  of  religion.  If  the  social 
consciousness  is  to  be  regarded  as  historically 
justified,  it  must  believe  that  this  growing 
sense  of  brotherhood  and  consequent  obliga- 
tion is  simply  our  response  to  the  on-working 
of  God's  own  plan,  God's  own  will  express- 
ing itself  in  us.  The  purpose  to  recognize 
the  will  of  God,  thus  necessarily  involves  the 
recognition  of  human  relations,  since,  as  soon 
as  conscience  is  strongly  stirred  in  any  direc- 
tion, religion  can  but  feel,  in  this  demand  of 
conscience,  the  demand  of  God,  and,  there- 
fore, must  bring  the  convictions  of  the  social 
consciousness  into  religion.  Indeed,  it  may 
be  well  believed  that  Kaftan  is  right  in  his 
insistence  that  it  is  exactly  through  the  prac- 
tical, that  is,  in  the  realm  of  the  ethical,  that 
knowledge  arises  from  faith.1 

1  Cf.  American  Journal  of  Theology,  Oct.,  1898,  p.  824. 
(86) 


THE    THOROUGH    ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION  87 

In  any  case,  it  is  evident  that  the  old  prob- 
lem of  faith  and  works,  of  religion  and  ethics, 
of  the  first  and  second  commandments,  meets 
us  here  in  a  way  not  to  be  put  aside.  With 
an  ethical  demand  so  insistent  as  that  of  the 
social  consciousness  no  religion  can  be  at 
peace  that  is  not  with  equal  insistence  ethical. 
We  are  bound,  then,  to  show  how  communion 
with  God,  the  supreme  desire  to  find  God, 
necessarily  carries  with  it  active  love  for  men. 
We  must  show  how  we  truly  commune  with 
God  in  such  active  service.  The  social  con- 
sciousness, thus,  positively  thrusts  upon  every 
religious  man,  who  believes  in  it,  the  prob- 
lem of  the  thorough  ethicizing  of  religion. 
Or,  to  put  the  matter  in  a  slightly  different 
way,  if  the  sense  of  the  value  and  the  sacred- 
ness  of  the  person  is  one  of  the  two  greatest 
moral  convictions  of  our  time,  then  religion 
must  be  clearly  seen  to  hold  this  conviction, 
or  lose  its  connection  with  what  is  most  real 
and  vital  to  us.  This  is  the  problem. 

II.    THE     STATEMENT    OF    THE    PROBLEM 

All  will  probably  agree  that  religion  is 
communion  with  God.  We  have  seen  why 
the  social  consciousness  cannot  accept  a  falsely 


88         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

mystical  view  of  that  communion.  For  simi- 
lar reasons,  it  must  make  absolutely  subordi- 
nate all  non-ethical  and  simply  mysterious 
means  which  make  no  appeal  to  the  con- 
science and  to  the  reason — the  falsely  sacra- 
mental. Only  the  person  is  truly  sacramental. 
Much  else  may  be  of  value,  but  the  touch  of 
personal  life  is  the  only  absolute  essential  in 
religion.  We  have  seen,  also,  why  the  social 
consciousness  tends  to  regard  religion  as  a 
strictly  personal  relation. 

Our  problem  thus  becomes :  How  does 
the  desire  for  personal  relation  with  God,  the 
desire  for  God  himself,  lead  directly  into  the 
ethical  life — into  the  full  and  practical  recog- 
nition of  the  ethical  demands  of  the  social 
consciousness? 

To  guard  against  any  possible  misconcep- 
tion, it  is,  perhaps,  well  to  say  at  the  start  that 
the  desire  for  a  personal  relation  with  God 
has  no  purpose  of  returning  by  another  route 
to  the  false  position  of  mysticism,  in  the  claim 
of  special  private  revelations  that  are  exclu- 
sively for  it.  It  expects,  rather,  personal  con- 
viction of  that  great  revelation  that  is  common 
to  all,  and,  moreover,  it  knows  well  that  no 
personal  relation  is  essentially  sensuous,  and  it 
certainly  looks  for  no  sensuous  relation  to  God. 


THE     THOROUGH     ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION  89 

It  may  be  worth  while,  too,  to  reverse  our 
question  for  a  moment,  and  ask  how  morality 
necessarily  involves  religion.  The  true  moral 
life  is  the  fulfilment  of  all  personal  relations, 
and  as  such  can  least  of  all  omit  the  greatest 
and  most  fundamental  relation  which  gives 
being  and  meaning  and  value  to  all  the  rest — 
the  relation  to  God.  The  fully  moral  life, 
therefore,  must  include  religion.  The  unity 
of  the  two  may  be  thus  seen. 

But  the  present  inquiry  looks  at  the  matter 
from  the  other  side,  and  seeks  a  careful  and 
thoroughgoing  answer  to  the  question:  Why 
is  the  Christian  religion,  as  a  personal  relation 
to  God,  necessarily  ethical? 


III.    THE    ANSWER 

I.  Involved  in  Relation  to  Christ. — In  the 
first  place,  then,  it  probably  may  be  safely 
claimed  that  there  is  no  test  of  the  moral 
life  of  a  man  so  certain  as  his  attitude  toward 
Christ.  Setting  aside,  now,  any  special  re- 
ligious claims  of  Christ  altogether,  and  recog- 
nizing him  only  as  earth's  highest  character, 
the  supreme  artist  in  living,  who  knows  the 
secret  of  the  moral  life  more  surely  and 
more  perfectly  than  any  other,  he  becomes 


90         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

even  so  the  surest  touch-stone  of  character ; 
and  the  iron  filings  will  not  be  more  cer- 
tainly attracted  to  the  magnet  than  will  the 
men  of  highest  character  be  attracted  to 
Christ  when  he  is  really  seen  as  he  is.  There 
is  no  test  of  character  so  certain  as  the  test 
of  one's  personal  relation  to  the  best  persons. 
The  personal  attitude  toward  Christ  is  the  su- 
preme test.  In  receiving  him,  in  becoming 
his  disciples  in  a  completer  sense  than  we  own 
ourselves  the  disciples  of  any  other,  we  make 
the  supreme  moral  choice  of  our  lives;  and, 
if  no  more  is  true  than  has  been  already  said, 
we  so  accept  as  a  matter  of  fact  the  fullest 
historical  revelation  of  God  at  the  same 
time.  The  ethical  and  religious  here  fall 
absolutely  together.  And  all  the  subsequent 
choices  of  our  Christian  life,  if  true  to  Christ, 
are  necessarily  moral. 

2.  The  Divine  Will  Felt  in  the  Ethical 
Command. —  In  the  second  place,  the  sense 
of  the  presence  of  God,  of  the  divine  will 
laid  upon  us,  if  we  have  the  religious  feel- 
ing at  all,  comes  to  us  nowhere  in  our  com- 
mon life  so  certainly  and  so  persistently  as 
in  a  sense  of  obligation  which  we  cannot 
shake  off,  a  sense  of  facing  a  clear  duty. 
To  run  away  from  this,  we  are  made  to  feel, 


THE    THOROUGH    ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION          QI 

is  plainly  to  run  away  from  God.  Is  this 
not  a  simply  true  interpretation  of  the  com- 
mon consciousness?  Here,  then,  the  relig- 
ious experience  is  in  the  very  sphere  of 
the  ethical,  and  identical  with  it. 

3.  Involved  in  the  Nature  of  Godjs  Gifts. — 
Again,  God's  gifts  in  religion  are  of  such  a 
kind  that  they  simply  cannot  be  given  to  the 
unwilling  soul;  just  to  receive  them,  there- 
fore, implies  willingness  to  use  them;  and 
faith  becomes  inevitably  both  "a  gift  and  an 
activity."  However  one  names  God's  gifts 
in  religion,  so  long  as  the  relation  is  kept  a 
spiritual  one  at  all,  receiving  the  gift  requires 
a  real  ethical  attitude  in  the  recipient.  A 
real  forgiveness,  for  example,  involves  per- 
sonal reconciliation,  restored  personal  rela- 
tions ;  and  reconciliation  is  mutual.  One 
cannot,  then,  be  said  in  any  true  sense  to 
accept  forgiveness  from  God  who  is  not 
himself  in  an  attitude  of  reconciliation  with 
God,  of  harmony  of  will  with  him.  In  the 
same  way,  peace  with  God,  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit,  life,  God's  own  life,  cannot  be  really 
given  to  any  man  without  an  ethical  response 
on  his  part  in  a  definite  attitude  of  will. 
Anything  arbitrary  here  is,  therefore,  neces- 
sarily shut  out.  God's  gifts  in  religion  are 


92         THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  such  a  kind  that  they  simply  cannot  be 
given  to  the  unwilling  soul.  They  are  not 
things  to  be  mechanically  poured  out  on 
men.  We  have  no  need,  consequently,  to 
guard  our  religious  statements  in  this  respect. 
We  cannot  even  receive  from  God  the  spir- 
itual gifts  of  the  religious  relation  without  the 
active  will.  Here,  too,  religion  is  certainly 
ethical. 

4.  Communion    with    God,    through    Harmony 
with    His    Ethical   Will. — Or,    one    may   say, 
desire  for  real   communion  with  God   seeks 
God  himself,  not  things,  or  some  experience 
merely.     But  the  very  center  of   personality 
is   the   will;    any   genuine    seeking    of    God 
himself,    therefore,    to    commune   with    him, 
requires    unity  with    his    ethical  will.      The 
deepest  religious  motive  is  at  the  same  time, 
thus,  an  impulse  to  character. 

5.  The  Vision  of  God  for  the  Pure  in  Heart. 
—  Christ's  own  statement—  "Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  heart;  for  they  shall  see  God"  -sug- 
gests another  aspect  of  this  essential  unity  of 
the  religious  and  the  ethical.     The  connec- 
tion   in     the    beatitude    is    no    chance    one. 
The    highest    and    completest    revelation    of 
personality,   human    or  divine,  can   be    made 
only  to   the    reverent.      God    reveals  himself 


THE     THOROUGH     ETHICIZING     OF     RELIGION  93 

to  the  reverent  soul,  and  most  of  all  to  the 
pure  —  to  those  souls  that  are  reverent  of 
personality  throughout  and  under  the  sever- 
est pressure.  Therefore,  the  pure  in  heart 
shall  see  God.  "The  secret  of  the  Lord  is 
with  them  that  fear  him."1  The  vision  of 
God  requires  the  spirit  that  is  reverent  of 
personality,  and  this  spirit  is  the  abiding 
source  of  the  finest  ethical  living. 

6.  Sharing  the  Life  of  God. — But  perhaps 
the  clearest  and  most  satisfactory  putting  of 
the  relation  is  this.  The  very  meaning  of 
religion  is  sharing  the  life  of  God.  As  soon, 
now,  as  God  is  conceived  as  essentially  holy 
and  loving,  a  God  of  character,  a  living  will 
and  not  a  substance — and  Christianity  to  be 
true  to  itself,  must  always  so  conceive  him — 
so  soon  religion  and  morality  are  indissolubly 
united.  God's  life,  according  to  Christ's 
teaching,  is  the  life  of  constant  and  perfect 
self-giving.  To  share  the  life  of  God,  there- 
fore, to  share  his  single  purpose,  is  to  come 
into  the  life  of  loving  service.  The  two  fall 
together  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  social 
consciousness.  And  we  are  "saved,"  we  come 
into  the  real  religious  life,  only  in  the  pro- 
portion in  which  we  have  really  learned  to 

1  Psalm  25:14. 


94         THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

love.  "Everyone  that  loveth  is  begotten  of 
God,  and  knoweth  God." 1  The  old  separation 
of  religion  and  character  is  impossible  from 
this  point  of  view. 

7.  Christ,  as  Satisfying  Our  Highest  Claims 
on  Life. — But  we  may  still  profitably  press  the 
question :  Is  the  Christian  religion — the  spe- 
cial faith  in  the  revelation  of  God  in  Christ, 
the  best  way  to  righteousness?  does  it  neces- 
sarily, most  naturally,  most  spontaneously,  and 
most  joyfully  carry  righteousness  of  life  with 
it?  If  this  is  to  be  true,  Christian  faith,  in 
Herrmann's  language,  "must  give  men  the 
power  to  submit  with  joy  to  the  claims  of 
duty."2  It  may  be  doubted  whether  any  one 
has  dealt  with  this  question  as  satisfactorily  as 
Herrmann  himself,  and  a  few  sentences  may 
well  be  quoted  from  his  discussion.  :t  We 
know'  that  the  ordinary  instinctive  way  in 
which  men  seek  the  satisfaction  of  all  the 
needs  of  life  makes  it  impossible  to  submit 
honestly  to  the  demands  of  duty,  and  we  see, 
also,  the  falsity  of  the  childish  idea  of  the 
mystics  that  this  instinct  should  be  extirpated ; 
it  follows,  then,  that  we  can  only  seek  moral 
deliverance  in  a  true  and  perfect  satisfaction 

1 1  John  4:7. 

2  The  Communion  of  the  Christian  with   God,  p.  230. 


THE     THOROUGH     ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION  95 

of  our  craving  for  life.  .  .  Now  just  such 
a  feeling  of  perfect  inner  contentment  is  pos- 
sible to  the  Christian,  and  he  has  it  just  in 
proportion  as  he  understands  that  God  turns 
to  him  in  Christ.  .  .  This  is  redemption, 
that  Christ  creates  within  us  a  living  joy, 
whose  brightness  beams  even  from  the  eye  of 
sorrow,  and  tells  the  world  of  a  power  it  can- 
not comprehend.  And  the  power  that  works 
redemption  is  the  fact  that  in  our  world 
there  is  a  Man  whose  appearance  can  at  any 
moment  be  to  us  the  mighty  Word  of  God, 
snatching  us  out  of  our  troubles  and  making 
us  to  feel  that  he  desires  to  have  us  for  his 
own,  and  so  setting  us  free  from  the  world 
and  from  our  own  instinctive  nature."1 

Christ,  that  is,  has  no  desire  to  withdraw 
himself  from  the  test  of  the  largest  life.  He 
is  able  to  satisfy  the  highest  demands  for  life. 
He  courts  the  trial.  He  claims  to  offer  life, 
the  largest  life.  "I  came,"  he  says,  "that 
they  may  have  life,  and  may  have  it  abun- 
dantly." His  way  of  deliverance  is  not  neg- 
ative but  positive,  not  limiting  but  fulfilling. 
He  is  able  to  give  such  largeness  of  life  in 
himself,  such  inner  satisfaction  of  the  craving 

1  Op.  cit.,  pp.  232-234. 
3  John  10:10. 


96          THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

for  life,  as  makes  a  lower  life  lose  its  power 
over  us,  the  larger  and  higher  life  driving  out 
the  meaner  and  lower.  This  is  positive  vic- 
tory, supplanting  the  lower  with  the  higher; 
just  as  in  literature,  in  music,  in  friendship, 
and  in  love,  we  expect  the  best  to  break  down 
the  taste  for  the  lower. 

8.  The  Vision  of  the  Riches  of  the  Life  of 
Christ,  Ethically  Conditioned. — But  the  thought 
of  Christ's  satisfying  our  highest  claim  on 
life  deserves  to  be  carried  further,  if  it  is  to 
be  saved  from  vagueness  and  to  have  its  full 
power  with  us.  The  highest  value  in  the 
world  is  a  personal  life.  So  Christ  has  made 
us  feel.  It  is  finally  the  only  value,  for  all 
other  so-called  values  borrow  their  value  from 
persons.  The  highest  joy  conceivable  is  en- 
tering into  the  riches  of  another's  personal 
life  through  his  willing  self-revelation.  Now 
it  is  no  fine  fancy  that  the  supremely  rich  life 
of  the  world's  history  is  Christ's.  God  can 
only  be  known,  if  we  are  not  to  fall  back 
into  the  vagaries  of  mysticism,  in  his  concrete 
manifestation;  and  God  opens  out  in  Christ, 
the  New  Testament  believes,  the  inexhaus- 
tible wealth  of  his  own  personal  life.  It  is 
God's  highest  gift,  the  gift  of  himself.  "No 
one  knoweth  the  Son  save  the  Father;  neither 


THE     THOROUGH     ETHICIZING     OF     RELIGION  97 

doth  any  know  the  Father,  save  the  Son,  and 
he  to  whom  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him."1 
"This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  should  know 
thee,  the  only  true  God,  and  him  whom  thou 
didst  send."2  So  it  seemed  to  Paul:  "Unto 
me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all  saints, 
was  this  grace  given,  to  preach  unto  the  Gen- 
tiles the  unsearchable  riches  of  Christ."3  Do 
we  not  here  catch  a  glimpse  of  what  the 
depth  of  that  satisfaction  with  the  inner  life 
of  God  in  Christ  may  be  ? 

"  For  He  who  hath  the  heart  of  God  sufficed, 
Can  satisfy  all  hearts, — yea,  thine  and  mine." 

Only  the  riches  of  a  personal  life  can  satisfy 
our  claim  on  life,  our  desire  for  life ;  and, 
ultimately,  we  can  be  fully  satisfied  only  with 
God's  own  life  in  the  fullest  revelation  he  can 
make  of  it  to  us  men.  Only  this  can  be  "the 
unspeakable  gift."  The  thirst  for  God,  for 
the  living  God,  is  a  simply  true  expression  of 
the  human  heart  when  it  comes  to  real  self- 
knowledge. 

But  the  riches  of  the  personal  life  of  Christ 
are  necessarily  hidden  to  one  who  does  not 
come  into  the  sharing  of  Christ's  purpose. 
The  condition  of  the  vision  is  ethical.  The 

1  Matt.  11:27.  2  John  17:3.  8  Eph.  3:8. 

G 


98         THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

very  satisfaction,  therefore,  of  our  craving  for 
life  constantly  impels  to  a  more  perfect  union 
with  the  will  of  Christ;  for  such  complete 
entering  into  the  life  of  another  with  joy 
implies  profound  agreement.  The  desire 
for  life,  therefore,  for  God's  own  life,  for 
communion  with  God,  itself  impels  to  char- 
acter. Faith  does  here  give  "the  power  to 
submit  with  joy  to  the  claims  of  duty,"  and 
religion  is  ethical  in  the  very  heart  of  it. 

9.  The  Moral  Law,  as  a  Revelation  of  the 
Love  of  God. — The  same  unity  of  the  religious 
and  ethical  life  is  helpfully  seen,  if  we  put 
the  matter  in  one  further  and  slightly  differ- 
ent way.  Only  the  Christian  religion,  faith 
in  God  as  Father  revealed  in  Christ,  enables 
us  to  welcome  the  stern  demands  of  duty 
and  so  gives  us  inner  deliverance,  joy,  and 
liberty  in  the  moral  life;  for  now  the  moral 
demand  is  seen,  not  as  task  only,  but  as  op- 
portunity. For  Christ,  the  law  of  God  is  a 
revelation  of  the  love  of  God ;  it  is  a  gracious 
indication  —  a  secret  whispered  to  us  —  of  the 
lines  along  which  we  are  to  find  our  largest 
and  richest  life;  it  is  not  a  limitation  of  life, 
but  a  way  to  larger  life.  Not,  then,  the  avoid- 
ance, as  far  as  possible,  of  the  law  of  God, 
but  the  completest  fulfilment  of  it  is  the  road 


THE     THOROUGH     ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION  99 

to  life — following  the  hint  of  the  law  into  the 
remotest  ramifications,  and  into  the  inmost 
spirit,  of  the  life. 

The  other  attitude  which  assumes  that  the 
law  is  a  hindrance  to  life  is  a  distinct  denial 
of  the  love  of  God.  It  implies  that  God 
lays  upon  us  demands  which  are  not  for  our 
good.  It  refuses  to  accept  as  reality  Christ's 
manifestation  of  God  as  Father.  Real  belief 
in  the  love  of  God,  on  the  other  hand,  must 
take  the  fearful  out  of  his  commands.  To 
be  "freed  from  the  law,"  now,  has  quite  a 
different  meaning :  not  the  taking  off  from 
us  of  the  moral  demand,  but  the  inner  deliv- 
erance, that  would  not  have  the  command 
removed,  but  finds  life  in  it,  and  obeys  it 
freely  and  joyfully.  Only  a  thoroughgoing 
and  fundamental  faith  in  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  can  bring  such  inner  deliverance,  even 
as  we  have  seen  that  only  such  a  faith  can 
really  ground  the  social  consciousness.  And 
such  a  faith  only  Christ  has  proved  adequate 
to  bring. 

With  this  light,  now,  we  feel,  in  every  de- 
mand of  duty,  the  presence  of  God,  and  in 
this  presence  of  God  the  pledge  of  life,  not 
a  limitation  of  life.  The  religious  life  desires 
God,  and  it  finds  God  never  so  certainly 


100       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

as  in  the  purpose  fully  to  face  duty.  Every 
one 'of  the  relations  of  life  is,  thus,  turned  to 
with  joy  by  the  religious  man,  as  sure  to  be 
a  further  channel  of  the  revelation  of  God. 
The  thirst  for  God  drives  to  the  faithful  ful- 
filment of  the  human  relation.  Religion 
becomes  joyfully  ethical. 

Nor  is  there  any  possibility  of  abandon- 
ment to  the  will  of  God  in  general,  as  the 
mystic  seems  often  to  feel.  God's  will  means 
particulars  all  along  the  way  of  our  life ;  and 
there  is  no  communion  with  God  except  in 
this  ethical  will  in  particulars.  At  no  point, 
therefore,  can  the  religious  life  withdraw  it- 
self from  the  daily  duty  and  maintain  its  own 
existence.  The  constant  inevitable  condition 
of  the  religious  communion  is  the  ethical 
will.  Our  providential  place  is  God's  place 
to  find  us.  Where  God  has  put  us,  just 
there  he  will  best  find  us.  This  is  further 
seen  in  the  fact  that  the  true  Christian  experi- 
ence is  a  constant  paradox :  God  ever  satisfy- 
ing, and  yet  ever  impelling  —  never  allowing 
us  to  remain  where  we  are,  but  holding  up 
to  us  the  always  higher  ideal  beyond ;  the 
law  is  ever,  "Of  his  fulness  we  all  received, 
and  grace  in  place  of  grace."1  The  deeperi- 

1John.  i:  16.     Cf.  Herrmann,  Op.  cit.,  pp.  92,  93. 


THE    THOROUGH    ETHICIZING    OF    RELIGION         IOI 

ing  communion  with  God  is  only  through  a 
constantly  deepening  moral  life. 

Such  a  thoroughgoing  ethicizing  of  reli- 
gion as  the  social  consciousness  demands,  we 
need  not  hesitate,  therefore,  to  believe  is 
possible.  The  truer  religion  is  to  its  own 
great  aspiration  after  God,  the  more  certainly 
is  it  ethical. 

But  the  social  consciousness,  so  far  as  it 
influences  religion,  not  only  tends  to  draw 
away  from  the  falsely  mystical,  and  to  empha- 
size the  personal  and  the  ethical,  it  also  tends 
to  emphasize  in  religion  the  concretely,  his- 
torically Christian. 


CHAPTER   VIII 

THE  EMPHASIS  OF  THE   SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS   UPON 
THE   HISTORICALLY   CHRISTIAN  IN   RELIGION 

THE  fact  that  the  social  consciousness 
tends  to  emphasize  in  religion  the  concretely 
historically  Christian,  has  been  so  inevitably, 
involved  in  the  preceding  discussions,  that  it 
can  be  treated  very  briefly. 

I.    THE    SOCIAL   CONSCIOUSNESS    NEEDS    HISTORICAL 
JUSTIFICATION 

The  justification  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness, we  have  seen,1  must  be  preeminently 
from  history.  Neither  nature  nor  speculation 
can  satisfy  it.  It  needs  to  be  able  to  believe 
in  a  living  God  who  is  in  living  relation  to 
living  men.  It  needs  just  such  a  justification 
as  historical  Christianity,  and  only  historical 
Christianity,  can  give ;  it  needs  the  assurance 
of  an  objective  divine  will  in  the  world, 
definitely  working  in  the  line  of  its  own 
ideals.  It  needs  also  to  be  able  to  give  such 

1  Cf    above,  pp.  59  ff. 
(102) 


THE    HISTORICALLY    CHRISTIAN  IO3 

definite  content  to  the  thought  of  God  as  shall 
be  able  to  satisfy  its  own  strong  insistence 
upon  the  rational  and  the  ethical  as  historical. 


II.     CHRISTIANITY'S    RESPONSE    TO   THIS    NEED 

If  religion  is  to  be  a  reality  to  the  social 
consciousness,  then,  there  must  be  a  real 
revelation  of  a  real  God  in  the  real  world, 
in  actual  human  history,  not  an  imaginary 
God,  nor  a  dream  God,  nor  a  God  of  mystic 
contemplation.  This  discernment  of  God  in 
the  real  world,  in  actual  history,  is  the  glory 
even  of  the  Old  Testament;  and  it  came,  as 
we  have  seen,  along  the  line  of  the  social 
consciousness.  And  it  is  such  a  real  reve- 
lation of  the  real  God  that  Christianity  finds 
preeminently  in  Christ.  It  can  say  to  the 
social  consciousness :  Make  no  effort  to  be- 
lieve, but  simply  put  yourself  in  the  presence 
of  a  concrete,  definite,  actual,  historical  fact, 
with  its  perennial  ethical  appeal;  put  yourself 
in  the  presence  of  Christ  —  the  greatest  and 
realest  of  the  facts  of  history, —  and  let  that 
fact  make  its  own  legitimate  impression, 
work  its  own  natural  work;  that  fact  alone, 
of  all  the  facts  of  history,  gives  you  full  and 
ample  warrant  for  your  own  being. 


IO4        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

If  this  be  true,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that,  so  far  as  the  social  consciousness 'under- 
stands itself  and  influences  religion  at  all,  it 
will  tend  to  emphasize,  not  to  underestimate, 
the  concretely,  historically  Christian. 

The  natural  influence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness upon  religion,  then,  may  be  said 
to  be  fourfold :  it  tends  to  draw  away  from 
the  falsely  mystical ;  it  tends  to  emphasize 
the  personal  in  religion,  and  so  to  keep  the 
truly  mystical;  it  tends  to  emphasize  the 
ethical  in  religion ;  and  it  needs  the  con- 
cretely, historically  Christian. 


THE    INFLUENCE    OF    THE    SOCIAL 
CONSCIOUSNESS    UPON    THEO- 
LOGICAL   DOCTRINE 

CHAPTER    IX 

GENERAL    RESULTS 

THE  question  of  this  third  division  of  our 
inquiry  is  this :  To  what  changed  points  of 
view,  and  to  what  restatements  of  doctrine, 
and  so  to  what  better  appreciation  of  Chris- 
tian truth,  does  the  social  consciousness  of 
our  time  lead?  The  question  is  raised  here, 
as  in  the  case  of  the  conception  of  religion, 
not  as  one  of  exact  historical  connection, 
but  rather  as  a  question  of  sympathetic  points 
of  contact.  It  means  simply:  With  what 
changes  in  theological  statements  would  the 
social  consciousness  naturally  find  itself  most 
sympathetic  ? 

Certain  general  results  are  clear  from  the 
start,  and  might  be  anticipated  from  any  one 
of  several  points  of  view. 

(105) 


IO6        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

I.     THE     CONCEPTION    OF    THEOLOGY    IN    PERSONAL 

TERMS 

In  the  first  place,  the  social  consciousness 
means,  we  have  found,  emphasis  on  the  fully 
personal — a  fresh  awakening  to  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  person  and  of  personal  relations. 
Its  whole  activity  is  in  the  sphere  of  personal 
relations.  Hence,  as  in  the  conception  of 
religion,  so  here,  so  far  as  the  social  con- 
sciousness affects  theology  at  all,  it  will  tend 
everywhere  to  bring  the  personal  into  promi- 
nence, and  it  certainly  will  be  found  in  har- 
mony ultimately  with  the  attempt  to  conceive 
theology  in  terms  of  personal  relations. 
These  are  for  the  social  consciousness  the 
realest  of  realities ;  and  if  theology  is  to  be 
real  to  the  social  consciousness,  then  it  must 
make  much  of  the  personal.  Theology,  thus, 
it  is  worth  while  seeing,  is  not  to  be  personal 
and  social,  but  it  will  be  social — it  will  do  jus- 
tice to  the  social  consciousness  —  if  it  does 
justice  to  the  fully  personal;  for,  in  the  lan- 
guage of  another,  "man  is  social,  just  in  so  far 
as  he  is  personal."1 

The  foreign  and  unreal  seeming  of  many 
of  the  old  forms  of  statement,  it  may  well  be 

1  Nash,  Ethics  and  Revelation,  p.  259. 


GENERAL     RESULTS  IO7 

noted  in  passing,  has  its  probable  cause  just 
here.  They  were  not  shaped  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  the  social  consciousness.  They  got 
at  things  in  a  way  we  should  not  now  think  of 
using.  The  method  of  approach  was  too 
merely  metaphysical  and  individualistic  and 
mystical,  and  the  result  seems  to  us  to  have 
but  slight  ethical  or  religious  significance. 
The  arguments  that  now  move  us  most,  in 
this  entire  realm  of  spiritual  inquiry,  are 
moral  and  social  rather  than  metaphysical 
and  mystical.  It  is  interesting  to  see,  for  ex- 
ample, how  such  arguments  for  immortality 
as  that  of  the  simplicity  of  the  soul's  being — 
and  most  of  those  used  by  Plato  —  and  how 
such  arguments  even  for  the  existence  of 
God  as  those  of  Samuel  Clarke  from  time 
and  space,  have  become  for  us  merely  matters 
of  curious  inquiry.  We  can  hardly  imagine 
men  having  given  them  real  weight.  A  simi- 
lar change  seems  to  be  creeping  over  the 
laborious  attempts  metaphysically  to  conceive 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  The  question  is  shift- 
ing its  position  for  both  radical  and  conserva- 
tive to  a  new  ground — from  the  metaphysical 
and  mystical  to  the  moral  and  social ;  though 
some  radicals  who  regard  themselves  as  in  the 
van  of  progress  have  not  yet  found  it  out,  and 


I08        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

so  find  fault  with  one  for  not  continually  de- 
fining himself  in  terms  of  the  older  meta- 
physical formulas  and  shibboleths.  The  con- 
siderations, in  all  these  questions  and  in  many 
others,  which  really  weigh  most  with  us  now, 
are  considerations  which  belong  to  the  sphere 
of  the  personal  spiritual  life.  Ultimately, 
no  doubt,  a  metaphysics  is  involved  here  too; 
but  it  is  a  metaphysics  whose  final  reality  is 
spirit,  not  an  unknown  substance — Locke's 
"something,  I  know  not  what." 

The  unsatisfactoriness  of  even  so  honored 
a  symbol  as  the  Apostles'  Creed,  as  a  perma- 
nently adequate  statement  of  Christian  faith, 
must  for  similar  reasons  become  increasingly 
clear  in  the  atmosphere  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness. One  wonders,  as  he  goes  care- 
fully over  it,  that  so  many  concrete  statements 
could  be  made  concerning  the  Christian  reli- 
gion, which  yet  are  so  little  ethical.  The 
creed  seems  almost  to  exclude  the  ethical. 
It  has  nothing  to  say,  except  by  rather  distant 
implication,  of  the  character  of  God,  of  the 
character  of  Christ,  or  of  the  character  of 
men.  The  life  of  Christ  between  his  birth 
and  his  death  are  untouched.  The  consider- 
ations that  really  weigh  most  with  us  —  as  they 
did  with  the  apostles — in  making  us  Christians, 


GENERAL     RESULTS  IOQ 

certainly  do  not  come  here  to  prominent  ex- 
pression. This  whole  difference  of  atmos- 
phere is  the  striking  fact;  and  were  it  not 
that  we  instinctively  interpret  its  phrases  in 
accordance  with  our  modern  consciousness, 
we  should  feel  the  difference  much  more  than 
we  do. 

What  the  previous  discussion  has  called  the 
truly  mystical — the  recognition  of  the  whole 
man,  of  the  entire  personality — is  coming  in 
increasingly  to  correct  both  the  falsely  mysti- 
cal and  the  falsely  metaphysical.  We  are 
arguing  now,  in  harmony  with  the  social 
consciousness,  from  the  standpoint  of  the 
broadly  rational,  not  from  that  of  the  narrowly 
intellectual. 


II.    THE    FATHERHOOD    OF    GOD,  AS   THE    DETER- 
MINING  PRINCIPLE    IN   THEOLOGY 

One  might  reach  essentially  the  same  gen- 
eral results  from  the  influence  of  the  social 
consciousness,  by  seeing  that,  so  far  as  it  deep- 
ens for  us  the  meaning  of  the  personal,  it  will 
deepen  immediately  our  conception  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God — the  central  and  domi- 
nating doctrine  in  all  theology — and  so  affect 
all  theology.  For,  with  a  change  in  the  con- 


110        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

ception  of  God,  no  doctrine  can  go  wholly 
untouched.  Every  step  into  a  deeper  feeling 
for  the  personal — and  the  growth  of  the 
modern  social  consciousness  is  undoubtedly 
a  long  step  in  that  direction — deepens  neces- 
sarily religion  and  theology.  Perhaps  the 
possible  results  here  can  be  illustrated  in  no 
way  better  than  by  recalling  Patterson  DuBois' 
putting  of  the  needed  change  in  the  concep- 
tion of  the  proper  attitude  of  a  father  toward 
his  child.  We  are  not  to  say,  he  writes:  "I 
will  conquer  that  child,  no  matter  what  it 
may  cost  him,"  but  we  are  to  say,  "I  will 
help  that  child  to  conquer  himself,  no  matter 
what  it  may  cost  me."  Now  that  change  in 
point  of  view  is  a  well-nigh  perfect  illustra- 
tion of  the  social  consciousness  in  a  given 
relation,  and  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  it  is 
a  true  expression  of  Christ's  thought  of  the 
Fatherhood  of  God ;  but  has  it  really  domi- 
nated through  and  through  our  theological 
statements?  Manifestly,  what  it  means  to  us 
that  God  is  Father  depends  on  what  we  have 
come  to  see  in  fatherhood.  And  Principal 
Fairbairn,  in  the  second  part  of  his  The  Place 
of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  has  given  us  a 
good  illustration  of  how  much  it  means  for 
theology  to  be  in  earnest  in  making  the 


GENERAL     RESULTS  III 

Fatherhood  of  God  the  determining  doctrine 
in  theology, 

III.    CHRIST'S    OWN    SOCIAL   EMPHASES 

Again,  if  the  general  influence  of  the  so- 
cial consciousness  upon  theological  doctrine 
is  to  be  recognized  at  all,  it  is  evident  that 
a  Christian  theology  must  take  full  account 
of  Christ's  own  social  emphases.  By  loyalty 
to  these,  it  will  expect  best  to  meet  the  need 
of  an  enlightened  social  consciousness.  It 
will  strive  thus  —  to  use  Professor  Peabody's 
instructive  summary  of  "the  social  principles 
of  the  teaching  of  Jesus" — to  be  true  to  "the 
view  from  above,  the  approach  from  within, 
and  the  movement  toward  a  spiritual  end ; 
wisdom,  personality,  idealism ;  a  social  hori- 
zon, a  social  power,  a  social  aim.  The  su- 
preme truth  that  this  is  God's  world  gave  to 
Jesus  his  spirit  of  social  optimism;  the  assu- 
rance that  man  is  God's  instrument  gave  to 
him  his  method  of  social  opportunism ;  the 
faith  that  in  God's  world  God's  people  are 
to  establish  God's  kingdom  gave  him  his 
social  idealism.  He  looks  upon  the  strug- 
gling, chaotic,  sinning  world  with  the  eye  of 
an  unclouded  religious  faith,  and  discerns  in 


112        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

it  the  principle  of  personality  fulfilling  the 
will  of  God  in  social  service."1 

And  every  one  of  these  three  great  social 
principles  of  Jesus  has  obvious  theological 
applications,  not  yet  fully  made. 

The  social  consciousness,  indeed,  well  illus- 
trates Fairbairn's  admirable  statement  of  how 
progress  is  to  be  expected  in  theology.  "The 
longer  the  history  [of  Christ],"  he  says,  "lives 
in  the  [Christian]  consciousness  and  pene- 
trates it,  the  more  does  the  consciousness  be- 
come able  to  interpret  the  history  in  its  own 
terms  and  according  to  its  own  contents.  The 
old  pagan  mind  into  which  Christianity  first 
came  could  not  possibly  be  the  best  inter- 
preter of  Christianity,  and  the  more  the  mind 
is  cleansed  of  the  pagan  the  more  qualified 
it  becomes  to  interpret  the  religion.  It  is, 
therefore,  reasonable  to  expect  that  the  later 
forms  of  faith  should  be  the  truer  and  purer."' 

Now  the  social  consciousness  itself  is  a 
genuine  manifestation  of  the  spirit  of  Christ 
at  work  in  the  world,  and  the  mind  perme- 
ated with  this  social  consciousness  is  conse- 
quently better  able  to  turn  back  to  the  teach- 
ing of  Jesus  and  give  it  proper  interpretation. 

1  Peabody,  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question,  p.  104. 
2Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  186. 


GENERAL    RESULTS  113 

IV.     THE     REFLECTION     IN     THEOLOGY    OF    THE 
CHANGES    IN    THE    CONCEPTION   OF    RELIGION 

Once  more,  theology,  as  an  expression  of 
religion,  will  at  once  reflect  any  change  in 
the  conception  of  religion.  The  influence 
of  the  social  consciousness  upon  religion, 
already  traced,  will,  therefore,  inevitably  pass 
over  into  theology.  This  means  nothing  less 
than  a  changed  point  of  view,  in  the  consid- 
eration of  each  doctrine.  For  theology  must 
then  recognize  clearly  that  it  can  build  on 
no  falsely  mystical  conception  of  communion 
with  God;  but,  while  keeping  the  elements 
in  mysticism  which  are  justified  by  the  social 
consciousness,  it  will  require  of  itself  through- 
out a  formulation  of  doctrine  in  terms  that 
shall  be  thoroughly  personal,  thoroughly 
ethical,  and  indubitably  loyal  to  the  con- 
cretely historically  Christian.  Many  tradi- 
tional statements  quite  fail  to  meet  so  search- 
ing a  test;  but  no  lower  standard  can  give 
a  theology  that  should  fully  meet  the  demands 
of  the  social  consciousness. 

The  general  results  of  the  influence  of  the 
social  consciousness  upon  theological  doc- 
trine, then,  may  be  said  to  include:  The 
emphasis  upon  the  fully  personal,  and  so 

H 


114        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

conceiving  theology  in  terms  of  personal 
relation;  the  deepening  of  the  conception 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God,  and  making  this 
the  determining  principle  in  theology;  the 
application  of  the  social  principles  of  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  to  theology;  the  reflection 
in  theology  of  the  natural  changes  in  the 
conception  of  religion  wrought  by  the  social 
consciousness.  Now  any  one  of  these  gen- 
eral results  indicates  the  certain  influence  of 
the  social  consciousness  upon  theology,  and 
any  one  might  be  followed  out  into  helpful 
suggestions  for  the  restatement  of  theological 
doctrines. 

But  we  shall  probably  most  clearly  and 
definitely  answer  the  question  of  our  theme, 
if  we  ask  specifically  concerning  the  several 
elements  of  the  social  consciousness :  How 
does  a  deepening  sense  of  the  like-minded- 
ness  of  men,  of  the  mutual  influence  of  men, 
of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person, 
of  personal  obligation,  and  of  love,  tend  to 
affect  our  theological  point  of  view  and  mode 
of  statement?  And  our  inquiry  will  follow 
these  separate  questions  in  separate  chapters, 
except  that  for  the  purposes  of  theological 
inference,  the  last  three  may  be  appropriately 
grouped  together. 


-  \  el R  A  *r 
v  or  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


CHAPTER    X 

THE  INFLUENCE    OF    THE   DEEPENING    SENSE    OF   THE 
LIKE-MINDEDNESS   OF  MEN   UPON    THEOLOGY 

IN  definitely  considering  the  influence  of 
the  social  consciousness  upon  theological 
doctrines,  our  first  question  becomes:  How 
does  the  deepening  sense  of  the  like-mind- 
edness  of  men  affect  theology? 

Obviously,  here,  the  change  will  be  largely 
one  of  mood.  We  shall  look  at  our  themes 
with  a  different  feeling,  and  so  speak  differ- 
ently, modifying  our  methods  of  putting 
things  in  those  slight  ways  that  do  not  seem 
specially  significant  to  one  who  judges  in 
the  mass,  but  mean  very  much  to  one  who 
feels  the  finer  implications  of  personal  life. 
These  finer  changes  no  one  can  hope  to 
follow  out  in  detail.  Certain  of  these  finer 
changes  will  naturally  find  incidental  ex- 
pression in  the  course  of  the  more  formal 
treatment. 

But  our  attention  must  be  mainly  given  to 
the  statement  of  some  of  the  most  important  of 
the  plainer  results  of  the  principle  in  theology. 


Il6        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 
I.     NO   PRIME    FAVORITES    WITH    GOD 

In  the  first  place,  this  conviction  of  the 
like-mindedness  of  men  means  that  there  can 
be  no  prime  favorites  with  God. 

It  can  hardly  help  affecting  the  thought 
of  election.  Election  will,  indeed,  be  thought 
of  as  qualified  by  the  character  of  the  chosen; 
for  even  Paul's  argument  in  Romans  clearly 
recognizes  this,  and  is,  in  fact,  itself  a  distinct 
argument  against  a  narrow  doctrine  of  elec- 
tion, as  others  have  recognized.1  But,  beyond 
this,  the  conviction  of  the  like-mindedness  of 
men  will  especially  view  election  as  a  choice 
for  service.  The  divine  method  of  election 
must  be  in  harmony  with  Christ's  fundamen- 
tal principle  of  his  kingdom,  and  with  the 
developing  social  consciousness:  "Whosoever 
shall  be  first  among  you,  shall  be  servant 
of  all."2  It  is  no  accident  that  this  thought 
of  election  as  choice  for  preeminent  service, 
which  '_  is  indeed  soundly  biblical,  has  come 
into  special  prominence  in  these  days  of  the 
social  consciousness.  The  same  change  is 
passing  over  our  view  of  the  "elect,"  as  of  the 
"privileged"  and  "governing"  classes.  We 

1  Cf.  e.  g.,  Clarke,  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.  145. 

2  Mark  10:44. 


INFLUENCE    OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN         117 

shall  not  return  to  the  older  feeling  of  prime 
favorites  of  God,  and  the  problem  of  evil 
will  find  herein  a  certain  alleviation.  We 
shall  feel  increasingly  that  each  race  and  each 
individual  have  their  calling  and  have  their 
compensating  advantages ;  and  that,  when  it 
comes  down  to  the  final  test  of  opportunity, 
the  differences  in  opportunity  between  in- 
dividuals are  far  less  than  they  seem ;  for  to 
each  one  is  given  the  possibility  of  the  larg- 
est service  any  man  can  render  —  the  possi- 
bility of  touching  closely  with  the  very  spirit 
of  his  life  a  few  other  lives.  '  There  are 
compensations,"  as  James  says,  "and  no  out- 
ward changes  of  condition  in  life  can  keep 
the  nightingale  of  its  eternal  meaning  from 
singing  in  all  sorts  of  different  men's  hearts."1 


II.  THE   GREAT  UNIVERSAL  QUALITIES   AND   INTER- 
ESTS, THE    MOST  VALUABLE 

Moreover,  since  equality  of  need  among 
men,2  implies,  as  we  have  seen,  a  common 
capacity  —  even  if  in  varying  degrees  —  of 
entering  into  the  most  fundamental  interests 
of  life,  this  belief  in  the  essential  likeness  of 

1  James,  Talks  on  Psychology  and  Life's  Ideals,  p.  301. 
-    2Cf.  Giddings,  Elements  of  Sociology,  p.  324. 


Il8        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

men  is  likely  to  carry  with  it  that  most 
wholesome  conviction  for  theology,  that  the 
great  universal  qualities  and  interests  are  the 
most  valuable.  Not  that  which  distinguishes 
us  from  one  another,  but  that  which  we  have 
in  common  is  most  valuable.  As  Howells 
tells  the  boys  in  his  A  Boy's  Town,  "the 
first  thing  you  have  to  learn  here  below,  is 
that  in  essentials  you  are  just  like  every  one 
else,  and  that  you  are  different  from  others 
only  in  what  is  not  so  much  worth  while."1 
This  consideration  is  no  small  help  in  fac- 
ing that  most  difficult  problem  for  any  ideal 
view  of  the  world  —  the  problem  of  evil. 

In  God's  world,  we  feel  that  the  most 
common  things  ought  to  be  the  best.  And 
this  growing  conviction  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness comes  in  to  confirm  our  faith. 
The  constant  and  simple  insistence  of  Christ 
on  receptivity  as  a  fundamental  quality  in 
his  kingdom  is  built,  in  fact,  on  an  opti- 
mistic faith  in  the  value  of  the  common 
things. 

It  is  interesting  to  notice  the  varied  con- 
firmations of  the  value  of  the  common. 
How  often  we  have  to  feel  that  the  deepest 
discussions  come  out  with  only  deeper  in- 

1  Howells,  A  Boy's  <To{wny  p.  205. 


INFLUENCE     OF     LIKE-MINDEDNESS     OF     MEN          IIQ 

sight  into  the  great  common  truths;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  in  stilted  philoso- 
phizing, what  seems  at  first  sight  a  great  dis- 
covery, proves  only  a  perversely  obscure  way 
of  putting  a  common  truth. 

It  is  the  very  mission  of  genius  —  of  the 
poet  in  the  larger  sense,  we  are  coming 
to  feel,  to  bring  out  the  value  of  the  com- 
mon. His  distinctive  mark  is  that  he  has 
kept  a  fresh  sense  for  the  great  common 
experiences  of  life.  So  Kipling  prays: 

"It  is  enough  that  through  Thy  grace 
I  saw  naught  common  on  Thy  earth. 
Take  not  that  vision  from  my  ken." 

So,  the  greatest  in  art,  Hegel  contends,  has 
a  universal  appeal. 

It  is  a  wholesome  and  heartening  convic- 
tion, I  say,  to  bring  into  theology,  that  the 
really  best  things  are  common,  accessible  to 
all,  actually  shared  in,  to  an  extent  beyond 
that  which  our  superficial  vision  seems  to 
show.  For,  after  all,  this  conviction  of  the 
social  consciousness  is  only  bringing  home 
to  us,  in  a  new  and  appreciable  way,  Christ's 
own  optimism  and  his  own  faith  in  the  love 
of  the  Father.  It  is  only  another  illustration 
of  Fairbairn's  principle  of  the  Christian  con- 
sciousness becoming  more  Christian,  and 


I2O        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

so   better   able   to   understand   and   interpret 
Christ. 

And  it  leads  us  back  by  this  route  of  the 
social  consciousness,  to  emphasize  in  life, 
and  in  our  theological  thinking  upon  the 
conditions  of  entering  the  kingdom  of  God, 
Christ's  own  insistence  upon  the  two  univer- 
sally human  characteristics  found  in  every 
child  —  susceptibility  and  trust,  which,  volun- 
tarily cherished,  become  teachableness  and 
belief  in  love.  If  God  is  Father  indeed,  and 
we  are  intended  to  come  to  our  best  in 
association  with  him,  these  qualities  must  be 
the  most  fundamental  ones.  And  they  imply 
no  lack  of  virility,  either,  for  the  highest 
self-assertion,  as  Professor  Everett  pointed 
out  in  his  criticism  of  Nietzsche,  is  in  com- 
plete self-surrender  to  such  a  will  as  God's. 
"When  Jesus  said,  'He  that  loseth  his  life 
shall  save  it,'  he  said  in  effect — The  self-sur- 
render to  which  I  call  you  is  the  truest  self- 
assertion.  We  find  thus  in  the  teachings  of 
Christianity  a  summons  to  strength  far  greater 
than  that  implied  by  the  self-assertion  which 
is  most  characteristic  of  the  teachings  of 
Nietzsche,  because  it  is  the  assertion  of  a 
larger  self."1 

1  The  New  World,  Dec.,  1898,  pp.  702,  703. 


INFLUENCE    OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          121 

Our  outlook  becomes  well-nigh  hopeless, 
when  we  make  our  tests  of  admission  to  the 
kingdom  so  much  more  exclusive  than  Christ 
himself  made  them. 


III.    ESSENTIAL   LIKENESS   UNDER   VERY    DIVERSE 
FORMS 

It  is  particularly  important  for  theology 
that  this  conviction  of  the  like-mindedness 
of  men  has  come  from  a  growing  power  to 
discern  essential  likeness  under  very  diverse 
forms;  for  this  consideration  bears  not  only 
on  the  problem  of  natural  evil,  but  also  on 
the  problem  of  sin  and  of  the  progress  of 
Christianity. 

We  have  taken  some  curiously  diverse 
paths  to  this  understanding  of  diverse  lives. 
Travels,  history,  biography,  autobiographical 
fragments,  anthropology,  sociology,  psychol- 
ogy, and — to  no  small  degree — fiction,  with  its 
stories  of  out-of-the-way  places  and  out-of-the- 
way  peoples  and  of  unfamiliar  classes, — all 
have  been  thoroughfares  for  the  social  con- 
sciousness here. 

We  are  slowly  learning  to  see  the  likeness 
under  the  differences,  and  so  to  transcend 
the  differences  even  between  occidental  and 


122        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

oriental.  All  this  means  much,  not  only  for 
our  practical  missionary  putting  of  the  truth, 
but  also  for  our  final  theological  statements. 
They  will  inevitably  grow  simpler,  larger, 
more  universally  human,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  deep  and  solid. 

We  are  slowly  learning,  too,  to  discern  a 
deep  inner  content  of  life  under  conditions 
that  have  no  appeal  for  us,  and  to  see  like 
ideals  and  aspirations  under  very  diverse 
forms  of  expression.  Take,  for  example, 
these  three  or  four  sentences — a  small  part 
of  that  quoted  by  Professor  James  in  his  essay, 
On  a  Certain  'Blindness  in  Human  ^Beings, — from 
Stevenson's  Lantern-bearers:  "It  is  said  that 
a  poet  has  died  young  in  the  breast  of  the 
most  stolid.  It  may  be  contended  rather 
that  a  (somewhat  minor)  bard  in  almost  every 
case  survives,  and  is  the  spice  of  life  to  his 
possessor.  Justice  is  not  done  to  the  versa- 
tility and  the  unplumbed  childishness  of 
man's  imagination.  His  life  from  without 
may  seem  but  a  rude  mound  of  mud ;  there 
will  be  some  golden  chamber  at  the  heart  of 
it  in  which  he  dwells  delighted."1  And, 
later,  on  the  side  of  ideals>  Stevenson  is 
quoted  once  again:  "If  I  could  show  you 

1James,  Talks  on  Psychology  and  Life's  Ideals,  p.  237. 


INFLUENCE    OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          123 

these  men  and  women  all  the  world  over,  in 
every  stage  of  history,  under  every  abuse  of 
error,  under  every  circumstance  of  failure, 
without  hope,  without  help,  without  thanks, 
still  obscurely  fighting  the  lost  fight  of  virtue, 
still  clinging  to  some  rag  of  honor,  the  poor 
jewel  of  their  souls!"1  And  now,  having 
quoted  Howells  and  Stevenson  as  theological 
authorities,  I  shall  be  pardoned  if,  for  a  mo- 
ment, I  erect  Kenneth  Grahame's  Golden  Age 
into  a  "theological  institute":  "See,"  said  my 
friend,  bearing  somewhat  on  my  shoulder, 
"how  this  strange  thing,  this  love  of  ours, 
lives  and  shines  out  in  the  unlikeliest  of 
places !  You  have  been  in  the  fields  in  early 
morning?  Barren  acres,  all !  But  only  stoop — 
catch  the  light  thwartwise — and  all  is  a  silver 
network  of  gossamer !  So  the  fairy  filaments 
of  this  strange  thing  underrun  and  link  to- 
gether the  whole  world.  Yet  it  is  not  the 
old  imperious  god  of  the  fatal  bow — epws  an^are 
fjaxw — not  that — nor  even  the  placid  respect- 
able a-Topyrj — but  something  still  unnamed,  per- 
haps more  mysterious,  more  divine !  Only 
one  must  stoop  to  see  it,  old  fellow,  one 
must  stoop  !  "2 


10/>.  «'/.,  p.  282. 

3P.    112. 


124        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

It  means  very  much  for  the  sanity  of  our 
outlook  on  life,  and  for  any  possible  theodicy, 
that  we  can  believe  the  heart  of  such  a  view 
as  this  for  which  Stevenson  and  Grahame 
are  here  contending.  And  what  is  all  this 
attempt  to  get  away  from  this  "certain  blind- 
ness in  human  beings,"  of  which  Professor 
James  speaks,  but  a  growing  into  one  of  the 
fixed  habits  of  Jesus,  what  Phillips  Brooks 
calls  "  his  discovery  of  interest  in  people 
whom  the  world  generally  would  have  found 
most  uninteresting?"  "And  this  same  habit," 
he  adds,  "passing  over  into  his  disciples,  made 
the  wide  and  democratic  character  of  the 
new  faith."1 

IV.   AS  APPLIED  TO  THE  QUESTION  OF  IMMORTALITY 

It  may  probably  be  safely  said  that  this 
steadily  growing  conviction  of  the  social 
consciousness,  of  the  essential  likeness  of  all 
men,  which  is  daily  confirmed  afresh,  and 
the  more  confirmed  the  more  careful  the 
study,  is  not  likely  to  take  kindly  to  the  idea— 
which  comes  into  a  part  of  Dr.  McConnell's 
argument  concerning  immortality,  in  his  in- 
teresting book,  The  Evolution  of  Immortality — 

Brooks,  The  Influence  of  Jesus,  p.  253. 


INFLUENCE    OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          125 

that  living  creatures  classed  as  men  on 
physical  grounds  are  not,  therefore,  to  be  so 
classed  on  psychical  grounds.1  The  consid- 
erations and  illustrations  brought  forward  by 
Dr.  McConnell,  in  connection  with  this 
proposition,  I  cannot  think  would  seem  at 
all  conclusive  to  either  the  trained  psychol- 
ogist or  sociologist.  It  is  exactly  the  like- 
mindedness  of  men  which  the  social  con- 
sciousness affirms,  and  it  has  not  come 
hastily  to  its  conclusion.  It  will  not  quickly 
surrender  that  conclusion.  There  is  an  "evo- 
lution of  immortality,"  and  it  has  been  age- 
long, but  it  is  pre-human.  The  belief  in 
immortality  so  far  as  it  does  not  rest  purely 
on  the  question  of  the  moral  quality  of  a 
given  human  life  (where  the  hypothesis  of 
"immortability "  may  properly  enough  come 
in)  is  grounded  upon  characteristics — like  that 
of  the  possibility  of  absolutely  indefinite  pro- 
gress2— which  in  sober  scientific  inquiry  can- 
not safely  be  denied  to  any  man,  and  must 
be  denied  to  all  creatures  below  man.  In 
any  case,  the  new  theory  of  "immortability," 
so  far  as  it  is  based  upon  the  proposition 

1  McConnell,  The  Evolution  of  Immortality,  pp.  75  ff. 
2Cf.  James,  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  pp.  348  ff.,  p.  367;  Lotze,  The 
Microcosmus,  Book  V,  especially  Vol.  I,  pp.  713,  714. 


126        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

here  considered,  has  its  battle  to  fight  out 
with  this  established  conviction  of  the  social 
consciousness  of  the  essential  like-mindedness 
of  all  men. 

There  are  various  considerations,  not  all 
of  them  wholly  creditable,  which  will  lead 
many  to  turn  a  willing  ear  to  this  new 
prophesying ;  but,  though  it  makes  much  of 
evolution,  it  seems  to  me  to  have  the  whole 
trend  of  the  social  evolution  against  it,  and 
to  give  the  lie  to  that  patient  sympathetic 
insight  into  the  lives  of  other  classes  and 
peoples,  which  is  one  of  the  finest  products 
of  the  ethical  evolution  of  the  race.  If  one 
is  tempted  to  believe  that  a  good  large  share 
of  the  human  race  are  really  brutes  in  human 
semblance, —  and  our  selfishness  and  pride 
and  impatience  and  unloving  lack  of  insight 
and  desire  to  dominate  may  naturally  tempt 
in  this  direction, —  let  him  read  that  chapter 
of  Professor  James  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made,  On  a  Certain  Blindness  in 
Human  Beings,  and  its  pendant,  What  Makes 
a  Life  Significant.  It  may  help  his  theology. 
Let  him  recall  the  words  of  Phillips  Brooks 
concerning  this  "strange  hopelessness  about 
the  world,  joined  to  a  strong  hope  for  them- 
selves, which  we  see  in  many  good  religious 


INFLUENCE     OF     LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          127 

people."  "In  their  hearts  they  recognize 
indubitably  that  God  is  saving  them,  while 
the  aspect  of  the  world  around  them  seems 
to  show  them  that  the  world  is  going  to 
perdition.  This  is  a  common  enough  con- 
dition of  mind ;  but  I  think  it  may  be  surely 
said  that  it  is  not  a  good,  nor  can  it  be  a 
permanent,  condition.  God  has  mercifully 
made  us  so  that  no  man  can  constantly  and 
purely  believe  in  any  great  privilege  for 
himself  unless  he  believes  in  at  least  the 
possibility  of  the  same  privilege  for  other 


men."1 


V.    CONSEQUENT    LARGER     SYMPATHY     WITH     MEN, 
FAITH    IN    MEN,    AND    HOPE    FOR   MEN 

This  whole  conviction  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness, of  the  like-mindedness  of  men, 
leads  naturally  to  increased  sympathy  'with  men, 
and  this  in  turn  to  still  better  discernment  of 
moral  and  spiritual  realities.  And  this  is  of 
prime  importance  for  the  theologian;  for  sym- 
pathetic insight,  it  must  never  be  forgotten, 
is  the  true  route  to  spiritual  verities.  So  far 
as  our  insight  into  actual  human  life  becomes 
truer,  so  far  our  theology  becomes  clearer  and 
more  reasonable. 

1  The  Candle  of  the  Lord,  and  Other  Sermons,  p.  154. 


128        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

This  conviction  leads  also  to  increased  be- 
lief in  men,  and  consequently  to  increased 
belief  in  the  effectiveness  of  the  higher 
appeals.  The  temptation  to  disbelief  in  man 
was  one  of  the  underlying  temptations  of 
Christ  as  he  looked  forward  to  his  work;  but 
he  turned  resolutely  from  it,  and  refused  to 
build  his  kingdom  on  any  lower  appeal  that 
implied  a  lack  of  faith  in  men.  Nothing 
seems  to  me  more  wonderful  in  Christ  than 
his  marvelous  faith  in  man ;  for,  though  he  has 
the  deepest  sense  of  the  sin  of  men,  there  is 
not  the  slightest  trace  of  cynicism  in  his 
thought  or  life. 

This  recognition  of  likeness  under  diver- 
sity, too,  leads  to  increased  hope  for  men,  here 
and  hereafter.  In  James'  words:  "It  abso- 
lutely forbids  us  to  be  forward  in  pronoun- 
cing on  the  meaninglessness  of  forms  of  ex- 
istence other  than  our  own.  .  .  .  Neither 
the  whole  of  truth  nor  the  whole  of  good  is 
revealed  to  any  single  observer.  .  .  .  No 
one  has  insight  into  all  the  ideals.  No  one 
should  presume  to  judge  them  off-hand."1 

This  thought  helps  us  to  greater  hope  for 
men,  because,  indeed,  it  helps  us  to  the  dis- 
cernment of  genuine  ideals  under  very  differ- 

1  Talks  on  Psychology  and  Life's  Ideals,  pp.  263,  265. 


INFLUENCE    OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          I2Q 

ent  forms  of  life,  of  the  universal  sense  of 
duty  and  some  loyalty  to  it,  though  there  is 
great  diversity  of  judgment  as  to  what  is  duty.1 
But,  it  is  here  to  be  noted,  also,  that  the 
thought  of  the  like-mindedness  of  men  brings 
greater  hope,  because  it  helps  to  the  dis- 
cernment of  likeness,  even  under  difference 
in  important  terms  used.  We  are  coming  to 
see  that  there  is  sometimes,  at  least,  a 
really  strong  religious  faith  where  men  do 
not  acknowledge  the  term.  Thus,  Bradley 
says:  "All  of  us,  I  presume,  more  or  less, 
are  led  beyond  the  region  of  ordinary  facts. 
Some  in  one  way,  and  some  in  others,  we 
seem  to  touch  and  have  communion  with 
what  is  beyond  the  visible  world.  In  vari- 
ous manners  we  find  something  higher, 
which  supports  and  humbles,  both  chastens 
and  transports  us.  And,"  as  a  philosopher 
he  adds,  "with  certain  persons,  the  intel- 
lectual effort  to  understand  the  universe  is 
a  principal  way  of  thus  experiencing  the 
Deity."2 

Even  where  the  term  Deity  would  be  en- 
tirely abjured,  we    have  seen   with   Paulsen,3 

1  Cf.  above,  p.  121  ff. 

'2  Bradley,  Appearance  and  Reality,  pp.  5,  6. 

3  Cf .  above,  pp.  46,  47. 


I3O        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

that  a  real  faith  essentially  religious  in  char- 
acter may  be  clearly  manifest.  We  are  even 
coming  to  see  that  men  may  seem  to  them- 
selves to  be  contending  upon  opposite  sides 
of  so  fundamental  a  question  as  that  of  the 
personality  of  God,  and  yet  be  near  together 
as  to  their  own  ultimate  faith  and  attitude,  and 
possibly  even  as  to  their  real  philosophical 
views  of  God ;  but  the  same  term  has  come 
to  have  such  different  connotations  for  the 
men,  from  their  different  education  and  ex- 
perience, that  they  simply  cannot  use  it  with 
the  same  meaning. 

I  have  not  the  slightest  desire  to  reduce  the 
concrete,  ethical,  definitely  personal  religion 
of  Jesus  to  the  ambiguities  of  philosophical 
dreamers ;  the  world  is  going  to  become 
more  and  more  consciously  and  avowedly 
Christian.  But  I  do  not,  on  the  other  hand, 
as  a  Christian  theologian,  wish  to  shut  my  eyes 
to  great  essential  likenesses  in  fundamental 
faiths  and  ideals  and  aspirations,  because  they 
are  clothed  in  different  garb.  The  life  and 
teaching  of  Jesus  have  worked  and  are  work- 
ing in  the  consciousness  of  men  far  beyond 
the  limits  our  feeble  faith  is  inclined  to 
prescribe.  There  is  doubtless  much  "un- 
conscious Christianity,"  much  "unconscious 


INFLUENCE     OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN         131 

following  of  Christ."1  And  we  are  only 
following  Christ's  own  counsel,  when  we  re- 
fuse to  forbid  the  man  who  is  working  a 
good  work  in  his  name,  though  he  follows 
not  with  us.2  Certainly,  if  we  accept  the 
witness  of  a  man's  life  against  the  witness 
of  his  lips  when  the  witness  of  his  lips  is 
right,  we  ought  to  accept  the  witness  of  his 
life  against  the  witness  of  his  lips  when  the 
witness  of  his  lips  is  wrong. 

With  reference  to  all  the  preceding  in- 
ferences from  the  deepening  sense  of  the 
like-mindedness  of  men,  it  is  particularly 
worthy  of  note,  that  this  conviction  of  the 
essential  likeness  of  men  has  come  into  ex- 
istence side  by  side  with  the  growing  con- 
viction of  the  moral  unripeness  of  many  men, 
and  in  spite  of  that  conviction.  The  careful 
study  of  different  social  classes  is  forcing 
upon  both  the  scientific  sociologist  and  the 
practical  social  worker,  the  sense  of  the 
ethical  immaturity  of  men.  But  deeper  than 
this  recognition  of  moral  unripeness,  deeper 
than  the  vision  of  the  sad  defectiveness  of 
moral  and  spiritual  ideals  and  standards, 

1  Cf.  Fremantle,   The  World  as  the  Subject  of  Redemption,  pp. 
250  ff,  320  ff ;  Lyman  Abbott,  The  Outlook,  Dec.  24,  1898. 
2 Mark  9:38,  39;  Cf.  Matt.  10:40-42. 


132        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

deeper  than  the  clear  sense  of  the  immense 
differences  among  men  as  to  what  is  duty, 
deeper  than  the  differences  in  even  the  most 
important  terms  used,  lies  this  great  convic- 
tion of  likeness  —  that  all  men  are  moral  and 
spiritual  beings,  made  for  relation  to  one 
another  and  to  God ;  that  they  have  ideals 
that  have  a  wide  outlook  implicit  in  them, 
and  have  some  loyalty  to  these  ideals ;  that 
they  do  have  a  sense  of  obligation;  that  the 
moral  and  spiritual  life  is  a  reality,  a  great 
universal  human  fact. 

VI.     JUDGMENT    ACCORDING    TO    LIGHT,    AND    THE 
MORAL   REALITY    OF   THE    FUTURE    LIFE 

It  is  no  accident,  now,  that  accompanying 
this  double  social  conviction,  there  has  come 
into  theology  a  new  insistence  upon  the 
principle  of  judgment  of  a  man  according 
to  his  light,  and  consequently  also,  what  Pro- 
fessor Clarke  calls  "a  tendency  toward  the 
recognition  of  greater  reality  and  freedom 
in  the  other  life,  and  thus  toward  the  possi- 
bility of  moral  change."1  Our  conception 
of  the  future  life  was  certain  to  be  modified 
by  the  social  consciousness;  and  it  may  be 

1  An  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.  475. 


INFLUENCE    OF     LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          133 

doubted  if  any  influence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness upon  theology  can  be  more  clearly 
traced  historically  than  this.  The  motives 
that  have  been  working  in  our  minds  here 
include,  on  the  one  hand,  a  wholesome  sense 
of  the  imperfection  of  even  the  best  human 
lives;  a  glad  discernment,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  the  presence  of  genuine  ideals  in  lives 
where  we  had  thought  there  were  none ;  the 
certainty  that,  as  Dr.  Clarke  says,  "for  at  least 
one-third  of  mankind  the  entire  life  of  con- 
scious and  developed  personality  is  lived  in 
the  other  world  j"1  an  experienced  unwilling- 
ness to  say,  where  we  cannot  see,  the  precise 
point  at  which  the  very  diverse  lives  of  men 
under  very  diverse  conditions  come  to  full 
moral  maturity;  and  the  conviction  that  a 
life  that  is  to  be  moral  at  all  must  be  moral 
everywhere  and  through  all  time,  and  that 
where  even  we  can  see  a  little,  God  can  see 
much  more.  All  these  motives,  now,  make 
us  refuse,  with  Christ,  to  answer  the  question, 
"Are  there  few  that  be  saved?"  And  both 
with  increasing  hope,  and  with  that  increasing 
sense  of  the  seriousness  and  significance  of 
life  which  so  characterizes  the  social  con- 
sciousness, to  urge:  "Strive  to  enter  in." 

1  Op.  cit.,  p.  469. 


134        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  growing  sense  of  the  likeness  of  men 
does  affect  our  thought  of  the  future  life. 
The  best  men,  under  the  clearest  light,  have 
only  begun;  for  the  best,  there  is  still  much 
need  of  growth.  Who  has  not  begun  at  all? 
For  whom  is  there  no  growth? 

Let  us  make  no  mistake  here.  It  is  no 
light  -  hearted  indifference  to  character,  to 
which  the  genuine  social  consciousness  leads. 
No  age,  indeed,  ever  saw  so  clearly  as  ours 
that  the  most  essential  conditions  of  happi- 
ness are  in  character,  or  was  more  certain 
that  sin  carries  with  it  its  own  inevitable 
consequences.  It  is  not  a  less,  but  a  more, 
profound  sense  of  the  seriousness  of  the 
problem  of  moral  character,  that  makes  us 
hesitate  to  dogmatize  concerning  the  future 
life. 

To  bring  together,  now,  the  conclusions  of 
the  chapter :  The  first  element  in  the  social 
consciousness — the  deepening  sense  of  the  like- 
ness of  men  —  seems  likely  to  affect  theology, 
especially  by  modifying  the  thought  of  election 
through  emphasis  upon  choice  for  service, 
and  through  the  clear  recognition  that  there 
are  no  prime  favorites  with  God ;  by  strength- 
ening the  conviction  that  the  great  common 
qualities  and  interests  are  the  most  valuable, 


INFLUENCE     OF    LIKE-MINDEDNESS    OF    MEN          135 

and  that  genuine  and  largely  common  ideals 
may  be  found  under  very  diverse  forms  and 
conditions ;  and  thus,  on  the  one  hand,  by 
opposing  the  denial  of  the  psychical  likeness 
of  men,  as  applied  to  the  problem  of  immor- 
tality, and,  on  the  other  hand,  by  bringing 
us  to  larger  sympathy  with  men,  to  larger 
faith  in  men,  and  to  larger  hope  for  men; 
and,  finally,  by  laying  new  emphasis  upon 
judgment  according  to  light,  and  upon  the 
moral  reality  and  freedom  of  the  future  life. 


CHAPTER    XI 

THE  INFLUENCE    OF   THE    DEEPENING    SENSE    OF   THE 
MUTUAL  INFLUENCE    OF  MEN   UPON   THEOLOGY 

FROM  this  first  element  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness, we  turn  now  to  the  second,  and 
ask,  How  does  the  deepening  sense  of  the 
mutual  influence  of  men  affect  theology? 

I.  THE  REAL  UNITY  OF  THE  RACE 

i.  First,  then,  taken  with  the  sense  of  the 
likeness  of  men,  it  can  hardly  be  doubted 
that  sociology's  strong  feeling  of  the  mutual 
influence  of  men  deepens  for  theology  the 
thought  of  the  real,  not  the  mechanical,  unity 
of  the  race.  The  theologian  believes,  more 
than  he  did,  in  a  race  whose  unity  is  preemi- 
nently moral,  rather  than  physical  or  mystical. 
The  truly  scientific  position  for  the  theologian 
seems  to  be,  to  make  no  mysterious  assump- 
tions, where  well-known  causes  are  sufficient 
to  account  for  the  facts ;  and  those  causes 
which  the  social  consciousness  clearly  sees  to 

(136) 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE     OF    MEN  137 

be  at  work  seem,  in  all  probability,  adequate 
to  account  for  the  facts  in  discussion  so  far 
as  those  facts  are  finite  at  all.1  The  theo- 
logian knows,  then,  a  true  moral  universe, 
with  a  unity  which  is  that  of  the  close  per- 
sonal, mutual  relations  of  like-minded  spiritual 
beings. 

The  natural  goal  of  such  a  race,  the  only 
one  in  which  they  can  truly  find  themselves, 
is  the  kingdom  of  God.  This  conception  of 
Christ  is  first  thoroughly  at  home  with  us, 
when  we  see  that  the  true  unity  of  the  race 
is  that  of  personal  moral  relation.  So  far  as 
men  turn  from  that  goal,  this  same  racial 
unity  of  the  inevitable  and  most  intimate 
personal  relations  converts  them  into  some- 
thing approaching  Ritschl's  conception  of  an 
opposing  "kingdom  of  sin." 

Are  we  prepared  to  be  thoroughly  loyal 
to  just  this  conception  of  the  unity  of  the 
race  throughout  our  theological  thinking; 
and  so  to  give  up  cherished  ideas  of  "com- 
mon," "transmitted,"  "inherited,"  or  "racial" 
sin  or  righteousness,  of  "mystical  solidarity," 
and  racial  ideal  representation,  etc.?  It 
probably  may  be  said  with  truth  that  few, 
if  any,  theological  systems  have  been  thus 

JCf.  above,  pp.  35  ff. 


138        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

loyal.  Indeed,  under  what  seems  a  mistaken 
application  of  the  social  consciousness,  and 
particularly  under  the  misleading  influence 
of  the  analogy  of  the  organism,  men  have 
believed  themselves  attaining  a  deeper  theo- 
logical view,  when  they  have,  in  fact,  turned 
away  from  the  sober  teaching  of  the  social 
consciousness. 

It  may  not  be  in  vain  for  our  theology  to 
hear  and  receive  with  patience  a  sociologist's 
definition  of  the  "social  mind."  Upon  this 
point  Professor  Giddings  says  explicitly : 
"There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  that  society 
is  a  great  being  which  is  conscious  of  itself 
through  some  mysterious  process  of  think- 
ing, separate  and  distinct  from  the  thinking 
that  goes  on  in  the  brains  of  individual  men. 
At  any  rate,  there  is  no  possible  way  yet 
known  to  man  of  proving  that  there  is  any 
such  supreme  social  consciousness."  Never- 
theless, he  adds:  "To  the  group  of  facts  that 
may  be  described  as  the  simultaneous  like- 
mental-activity  of  two  or  more  individuals  in 
communication  with  one  another,  or  as  a 
concert  of  the  emotions,  thought,  and  will 
of  two  or  more  communicating  individuals, 
we  give  the  name,  the  social  mind.  This 
name,  accordingly,  should  be  regarded  as 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  139 

meaning  just  this  group  of  facts  and  noth- 
ing more.  It  does  not  mean  that  there  is 
any  other  consciousness  than  that  of  indi- 
vidual minds.  It  does  mean  that  individual 
minds  act  simultaneously  in  like  ways  and 
continually  influence  one  another;  and  that 
certain  mental  products  result  from  such 
combined  mental  action  which  could  not 
result  from  the  thinking  of  an  individual 
who  had  no  communication  with  fellow- 
beings."1 

Just  so  far,  it  may  well  be  supposed,  and 
no  farther  may  we  go,  in  theology,  in  moral 
and  spiritual  inferences  from  the  unity  of  the 
race.  We  are  members  one  of  another  for 
good  and  for  ill,  one  in  the  unity  of  the 
inevitable,  mutual  influence  of  like-minded 
persons. 

II.    DEEPENING   THE    SENSE   OF    SIN 

And  this  conviction,  in  the  second  place, 
not  only  deepens  our  sense  of  the  real  unity 
of  the  race,  it  deepens  also  the  sense  of  sin. 
And  we  can  hardly  separate  here  the  in- 
fluence of  the  third  element  of  the  social 
consciousness — the  sense  of  the  value  and 

1  The  Elements  of  Sociology,  pp.  119,  120,  121. 


I4O        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

sacredness  of  the  person.  As  against  a  rather 
wide-spread  and  often  expressed  contrary  feel- 
ing, this  deepening  sense  of  sin  may  yet,  it 
is  believed,  be  truthfully  maintained,  so  far 
as  the  social  consciousness  is  really  making  itself 
felt.  There  are  some  disintegrating  ten- 
dencies here,  no  doubt,  like  the  tendency 
under  some  applications  of  evolution  and 
evolutionary  philosophy  to  turn  all  sin  into 
a  necessary  stage  m  the  evolution.  But  had 
not  Drummond  reason  to  say:  "There  is  one 
theological  word  which  has  found  its  way 
lately  into  nearly  all  the  newer  and  finer 
literature  of  our  country.  It  is  not  only  one 
of  the  words  of  the  literary  world  at  present, 
it  is  perhaps  the  word.  Its  reality,  its  certain 
influence,  its  universality,  have  at  last  been 
recognized,  and  in  spite  of  its  theological 
name  have  forced  it  into  a  place  which 
nothing  but  its  felt  relation  to  the  wider 
theology  of  human  life  could  ever  have 
earned  for  a  religious  word.  That  word,  it 
need  scarcely  be  said,  is  sin."1 

Contrast  this  modern  sense  of  sin  with  the 
almost  total  lack  of  it  among  even  so  gifted  a 
people  of  the  ancient  world  as  the  Greeks, 
and  feel  the  significance  of  the  phenomenon. 

1  The  Ideal  Life,  p.  149. 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF     MEN  141 

But  it  is  particularly  to  be  noted  that  this 
sense  of  sin  in  literature  is  largely  due  to  a 
keener  social  conscience.  In  fact,  if  the  social 
consciousness  is  not  a  thoroughly  fraudulent 
phenomenon,  it  could  hardly  be  otherwise; 
for  the  social  consciousness,  in  its  very  essence, 
is  a  sense  of  what  is  due  a  person;  and  sin  is 
always  ultimately  against  a  person,  failure  to 
be  what  one  ought  to  be  in  some  personal 
relation,  including  finally  all  the  relations  of 
the  kingdom  of  God.  We  simply  cannot 
deepen  the  sense  of  the  meaning  and  value 
of  personal  relations,  and  not  deepen,  at  the 
same  time,  the  sense  of  sin.  The  meaning 
of  the  Golden  Rule,  and  so  the  sense  of  sin 
under  it,  deepens  inevitably  with  every  step 
into  the  meaning  of  the  person.  If  the  one 
great  commandment  is  love,  then  the  sin  of 
which  men  need  most  of  all  to  be  convicted 
is  lack  of  love. 

The  self-tormenting  and  fanciful  sins  of 
some  of  our  devotional  books  very  likely  are 
less  felt.  But  the  very  existence  of  the  social 
consciousness  seems  to  be  proof  that  there 
never  was  so  much  good,  honest,  whole- 
some sense  of  real  sin  as  to-day — such  sin  as 
Christ  himself  recognizes  in  his  own  judg- 
ment test. 


142        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

It  may  be  that,  in  temporary  absorption  in 
the  human  relations,  the  relation  of  all  this 
to  the  All-Father  may  seem  forgotten ;  even 
so,  we  may  well  remember  Christ's  "Ye  did 
it  unto  me."  But,  in  fact,  we  must  go  much 
farther  and  say,  The  social  consciousness  can 
only  be  true  to  itself  finally,  as  it  goes  on  to 
see  its  acts  in  the  light,  most  of  all,  of  that 
single,  personal  relation  which  underlies  all 
others.  We  have  already  seen  that  the  social 
consciousness  requires  for  its  own  justification 
its  grounding  in  the  manifest  trend  of  the 
living  will  of  God.  With  this  felt  identifi- 
cation of  the  will  of  God  with  love  for  men, 
men  can  still  less  shake  off  easily  the  .con- 
viction of  sin. 

Probably,  most  religious  men  argue  a 
diminishing  sense  of  sin,  because  they  feel 
that  less  is  made  of  those  consequences  of 
sin  which  have  been  usually  connected  with 
the  future  life.  There  may  be  real  danger 
here  from  shallow  thinking;  but  here,  too, 
the  social  consciousness  has  only  to  be  true 
to  itself  to  be  saved  from  any  shallow  esti- 
mate of  the  consequences  of  sin  here  or 
hereafter.  As  the  sin  itself  is  always,  finally, 
in  personal  relations,  so  the  most  terrible 
results  of  sin,  in  this  life  and  in  all  lives,  are 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  143 

in  personal  relations.  What  it  costs  the  man 
himself  in  cutting  him  off  from  the  relations 
in  which  all  largeness  of  life  consists,  what 
it  costs  those  who  love  him,  what  it  costs 
God, —  this  alone  is  the  true  measure  of  sin. 
So  judged,  sin  itself  is  feared  as  never  before. 
Surely,  Principal  Fairbairn  is  right  in  saying: 
"And  so  even  within  Christendom,  sin  is 
never  so  little  feared  as  when  hell  most  dom- 
inates the  imagination ;  it  needs  to  be  looked 
at  as  it  affects  God,  to  be  understood  and 
feared."1  But  it  is  the  inevitable  result  of  the 
social  consciousness  to  bring  us  to  the  deepest 
conviction  of  all  these  personal  relations,  and 
so  to  the  deepest  conviction  of  sin. 

Another  consideration  deserves  attention. 
We  have  a  growing  conviction  that  our  social 
ideal  is  personally  realized  only  in  Christ,  and 
we  have  given  unequaled  attention  to  that 
life  and  have  such  knowledge  of  it,  in  its 
detailed  applications,  as  no  preceding  genera- 
tion has  ever  had.  This  simply  means  that 
we  have  both  such  a  sense  of  our  moral  call- 
ing, and  are  face  to  face  with  such  a  living 
standard,  as  must  steadily  deepen  in  us  a  gen- 
uine sense  of  real  sin,  in  our  falling  so  far 
short  of  the  spirit  of  Christ. 

1  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  455. 


144        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

Theology  needs,  further,  to  make  unmis- 
takably clear,  and  to  use  the  fact,  that  this 
mutual  influence  of  men  holds  for  good  as  well 
as  for  evil ;  that  few  greater  lies  have  ever 
been  told,  than  the  insinuation  that  only  evil 
is  contagious,  the  good  not.  And  this  con- 
viction of  the  contagion  of  the  good,  of 
mutual  influence  for  good,  concerns  theology 
particularly  in  three  ways,  all  of  which  may 
be  regarded  simply  as  illustrations  or  aspects 
of  the  one  kingdom  of  God.  We  are  mem- 
bers one  of  another  (i)  in  attainment  of 
character,  (2)  in  personal  relation  to  God, 
and  (3)  in  confession  of  faith.  And  each  of 
these  forms  of  mutual  influence  will  need 
careful  attention. 

In  considering  separately  here  attainment 
of  character  and  relation  to  God,  it  is  not 
meant  for  a  moment  to  admit  that  separation 
of  ethics  and  religion  which  has  been  already 
denied,  but  only  to  single  out  for  distinct 
treatment  the  one  most  important  and  funda- 
mental relation  of  life — relation  to  God.  We 
are  certainly  never  to  forget  that  the  indis- 
pensable condition  of  right  relations  to  God, 
is  that  a  man  should  have  been  won  into  wil- 
lingness to  share  God's  own  righteous  purpose 
concerning  men. 


THE    MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  145 

III.    MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    FOR    GOOD    IN    THE 
ATTAINMENT    OF    CHARACTER 

We  know  no  deeper  law  in  the  building  of 
character,  than  that  righteous  character  comes 
through  that  association  with  the  best  in 
which  there  is  mutual  self-giving.  The  prob- 
lem of  character  implies  not  only  a  bare  rec- 
ognition of  a  man's  moral  freedom,  but  a 
sacred  respect  at  every  point  for  his  person- 
ality. If  a  man  is  ever  to  have  character  at 
all,  it  must  be  absolutely  his  own;  he  must 
be  won  freely  into  it.  In  this  free  winning 
to  character,  no  association  counts  for  its  most 
that  is  not  mutual.  I  become  in  character 
most  certainly  and  rapidly  like  that  man  with 
whom  I  constantly  am,  to  whose  influence  I 
most  fully  surrender,  and  who  gives  himself 
most  completely  to  me. 

We  may  analyze  the  phenomenon  psycho- 
logically, as,  indeed,  we  have  already  done  in 
showing  that  a  true  personal  relation  to  Christ 
necessarily  carries  with  it  a  true  ethical  life. 
And  that  which  held  true  for  religion  cannot 
be  false  for  theology,  we  may  be  sure.  But, 
in  any  case,  we  always  come  back  finally  to 
the  fact,  that  character  is  truly  and  inevitably 
contagious  in  an  association  in  which  there  is 


146        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

mutual  surrender.  Character  is  caught,  not 
taught.  The  inner  strength  of  another  life 
to  which  we  surrender  is,  as  Phillips  Brooks 
somewhere  says,  "directly  transmissible."  I 
suspect  that  the  ultimate  psychological  prin- 
ciple at  work  here  is  that  of  the  impulsiveness 
of  consciousness.  But,  whether  that  be  true 
or  not,  the  witness  to  this  contagion  is  wide- 
spread among  students  of  men.  "The  greatest 
gift  the  hero  leaves  his  race,"  one  of  our  great 
novelists  says,  "is  to  have  been  a  hero."  In 
almost  identical  language,  a  great  ethical  and 
philosophical  writer  adds:  ''The  noblest 
workers  of  our  world  bequeath  us  nothing  so 
great  as  the  image  of  themselves.  Their  task, 
be  it  ever  so  glorious,  is  historical  and  tran- 
sient, the  majesty  of  their  spirit  is  essential 
and  eternal." 

But  one  might  ^still  think,  here,  only  of  an 
example.  The  other  life,  however,  must  be 
more  to  me  than  mere  example.  For  the 
highest  attainment  in  character  I  need  the 
association  of  some  highest  one,  who  will  give 
himself  to  me  unreservedly.  Redemption  to 
real  righteousness  of  life  cannot  be  without 
cost  to  the  redeemer.  And  it  is  a  psychologist, 
facing  the  ultimate  problem  of  will-strength- 
ening, who  urges  in  words  that  might  seem 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  147 

almost  to  look  to  Christ:  "The  prophet  has 
drunk  more  deeply  than  any  one  of  the  cup  of 
hiuerness;  but  his  countenance  is  so  un- 
shaken, and  he  speaks  such  mighty  words  of 
cheer,  that  his  will  becomes  our  will,  and  our 
lite  is  kindled  at  his  own."1  It  is  the  one 
it  certain  road  to  character  —  as  it  is  to 
appreciation  of  every  value  —  to  stay  in  the 
presence  of  the  best,  in  self-surrender  to  it. 
No  wonder  Christ  said,  "I  am  the  Way." 

i .  The  Application  to  the  Problem  of  Redemp- 
tion,— It  is  hardly  possible  to  ignore  this  one 
great  known  law  of  character-making,  which 
the  social  consciousness  so  presses  upon  us, 
in  any  thinking  that  is  for  a  moment  worth 
while  concerning  our  redemption  by  Christ. 
And  whatever  our  point  of  view,  this  consid- 
eration ought  to  have  weight  with  us.  Nay, 
must  we  not  make  it  necessarily  the  very  cen- 
ter of  all  our  thought  here?  For  all  the 
realities  in  this  problem  of  redeeming  a  man 
from  sin  to  righteousness  are  intensely  per- 
sonal, ethical,  spiritual.  Now,  are  we  to 
reach  a  deeper  view  of  redemption,  by  turn- 
ing away  from  the  deepest  ethical  fact  to  the 
unethical?  Do  we  so  ground  our  view  the 
more  securely?  Is  there  something  holier 

'James,  Psychology,  Vol.  II,  p.  579. 


148      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

than  the  holy  ethical  will  seen  realized  in 
Christ's  life  and  death?  For,  if  it  is  the  will 
in  his  death  by  which  we  are  sanctified,1  there 
can  be  no  sharp  separation  of  the  life  and 
death.  Must  we  not  rather  expect  that  the 
clearest  light,  on  the  holiest  in  God  and  our 
personal  relation  to  him,  will  be  thrown  by 
the  holiest  we  know  in  life,  in  our  human 
personal  relations  ? 

Is  not  the  precise  method  of  redemption, 
then,  to  no  small  degree,  cleared  for  us  right 
here,  in  this  conviction  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness of  the  contagion  of  the  good  in  a 
self -surrendering  association  —  the  only  soli- 
darity of  which  we  can  be  certain  ?  Christ 
saves  us,  in  the  only  certain  way  we  know 
that  any  man  is  ever  saved  to  better  liv- 
ing, through  direct  contagion  of  character, 
through  his  immediate  influence  upon  us. 
The  power  of  the  influence  of  a  redeeming 
person  must  depend  upon  two  facts :  the  rich- 
ness of  the  self  that  is  given,  and  the  depth 
of  the  giving.  The  supremely  redeeming 
power  must  be  the  giving  of  the  richest  self, 
unto  the  uttermost.  God  has  not  yet  done 
his  best  for  men,  until  he  gives  himself  in 
the  fullest  manifestation  which  can  be  made 

1  Cf.  Hebrews,  10:10. 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  149 

through  man  to  men,  and  gives  to  the  utter- 
most, with  no  drawing  back  from  any  cost. 
Is  it  not  because,  after  all,  back  of  all  theories 
and  even  in  spite  of  theories,  men  have  seen 
in  the  life  and  death  of  Christ  just  this  eternal 
giving  of  God  himself,  that  they  have  been 
caught  up  into  some  sharing  of  the  same 
spirit,  and  so  felt  working  directly  and  im- 
mediately upon  them  the  supremest  redeem- 
ing power  the  world  knows  ?  The  cross  of 
Christ  has  been  God's  not  only  saying,  "I 
will  help  that  child  to  conquer  himself,  what- 
ever it  costs  me,"  but  God  doing  it,  and  per- 
petually doing  it.  Not  less  than  that  must 
be  the  cost  of  a  man's  redemption. 

Character  is  directly  transmissible  in  an 
association  in  which  there  is  mutual  self-giv- 
ing. It  is  most  easily  so  transmissible,  only 
at  its  highest,  in  its  most  perfect  manifesta- 
tion, in  its  completest  self-giving  at  any  cost. 

The  self-giving  on  the  part  of  one  trying 
to  win  another  into  character  must  precede 
the  self-giving  of  the  sinner ;  for  the  sinner's 
own  willingness  to  yield  himself  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  character  of  the  other  must 
first  of  all  be  won.  This  initial  winning  of 
the  cooperative  will  of  the  other  is  the  heart 
of  the  whole  battle.  And  here  the  power 


I5O        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

relied  on  is  not  only  the  unconscious  conta- 
gion and  imitation  of  character  that  enlists  a 
man's  interest  almost  by  surprise,  but  also 
the  mightiest  influence  men  know  in  break- 
ing down  the  resisting  will  and  winning 
men  consciously  and  with  final  abandon  - 
the  influence  of  a  patient,  long-suffering, 
persistent,  self-sacrificing  love  that  cannot 
give  the  sinning  one  up. 

Most  certainly,  then,  redemption  cannot 
be  without  cost  to  the  redeemer  of  men- 
not  only  that  cost  to  the  hero  of  the  superior 
showing  of  superior  character  in  a  superior 
task,  but  that  other  cost,  indissolubly  linked 
indeed  with  this,  of  reverently,  patiently,  to 
the  bitter  end,  helping  another  to  conquer 
himself — the  inevitable  suffering  of  all  redemp- 
tive endeavor  for  those  whom  one  loves.  This 
involves  (i)  suffering  in  contact  with  sin, 
(2)  suffering  in  the  rejection  by  those  sin- 
ning, and  most  of  all,  (3)  suffering  in  the 
sin  itself  of  those  one  loves  because  one 
loves  them  —  suffering  which  is  the  more 
intense,  the  more  one  loves. 

2.  The  Consequent  Ethical  and  Spiritual 
Meaning  of  Substitution  and  Propitiation. — Can 
we  go  yet  a  step  farther  here?  It  may  be 
fairly  taken  for  granted  that  where  the 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF    MEN  151 

church  has  strongly  and  persistently  stood 
for  certain  modes  of  putting  a  doctrine  — 
though  the  precise  putting  may  be  unfortu- 
nate— that  in  all  probability  there  is  there 
some  real  and  important  truth  after  which 
the  consciousness  of  the  church  is  dimly 
feeling.  Starting,  now,  from  this  same  great 
law  of  the  contagion  of  character  and  the 
inevitable  influence  of  an  association  in  which 
there  is  mutual  self-giving,  is  it  not  possible 
to  show  that  there  is  a  strict  ethical  and 
spiritual  sense  that  we  can  understand,  in 
which  Christ's  suffering  may  be  truly  called 
vicarious,  and  himself  a  substitute  for  us,  and 
a  propitiation? 

It  is,  of  course,  not  for  a  moment  forgotten 
that,  in  Dr.  Clarke's  language,  "a  God  who 
will  himself  provide  a  propitiation  has  no 
need  of  one  in  the  sense  which  the  word  has 
ordinarily  borne.  Some  richer  and  nobler 
meaning  must  be  present  if  the  word  is  ap- 
propriate to  the  case."1  But  it  is  not  likely 
that  a  purely  ethical  and  spiritual  view  of  the 
atonement,  which  sees  the  problem  as  a 
strictly  personal  one — and  this  seems  to  the 
writer  the  only  true  position — can  ever  suc- 
ceed in  the  hearts  of  the  great  body  of  the 

lAn  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.  335. 


152        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

membership  of  the  churches,  if  it  cannot 
show,  at  the  same  time,  that  it  is  able  in  some 
real  way  to  take  up  into  itself  these  thoughts 
of  substitution  and  propitiation.  The  writer 
finds  much  of  the  old  language  about  the 
atonement  as  offensive  to  his  moral  sense  as 
any  man  well  can.  But  that  there  is  an  abso- 
lutely universal  human  need  for  something 
like  that  to  which  the  old  language  of  substi- 
tution and  propitiation  looked,  he  cannot 
doubt.  It  seems  to  show  itself  in  this,  that 
no  man  with  real  moral  sense,  probably,  cares 
to  put  himself  at  the  end  of  his  life,  say,  in 
the  attitude  of  the  Pharisee  rather  than  in  that 
of  the  Publican.  If  one  sets  aside  all  spec- 
tacular elements  in  the  judgment,  and  even 
denies  altogether  any  great  single  final  assize 
for  all  men,  still  he  cannot  avoid  the  thought 
of  some  judgment  upon  his  life.  As  Dr. 
Clarke  says  again:  "We  are  not  our  own 
masters  in  going  out  of  this  world ;  we  go  we 
know  not  whither.  Yet  our  going  is  not  with- 
out its  just  and  holy  method.  Our  place  and 
lot  in  the  life  that  is  beyond  must  be  deter- 
mined righteously,  in  accordance  with  the  life 
that  we  have  lived  thus  far,  that  the  next  stage 
in  our  existence  may  be  what  it  ought  to  be."1 

lOp.  cit.,  p.  459. 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  153 

However,  now,  that  judgment  of  God  may 
be  expressed,  no  man  can  hope  to  face  the 
test  proposed  by  Christ  in  the  twenty-fifth 
of  Matthew,  still  less  the  test  implied  in 
Christ's  own  life,  and  feel  that  he  has  already 
attained.  He  knows  himself  to  be  at  best 
only  a  faulty  growing  child,  with  some  real 
spirit  of  obedience  in  his  heart.  And  it  is 
particularly  to  be  noted,  that  exactly  that  man 
must  stand  most  definitely  for  the  reality  of 
some  genuinely  ethical  judgment,  who  has 
most  insisted  upon  the  necessarily  ethical 
character  of  the  religious  life.  Moreover,  the 
normal  experience  of  the  deepening  Chris- 
tian life  is  an  increasing  sense  of  sin.  Upon 
this  point,  too,  the  social  consciousness  is 
witness. 

What,  now,  makes  it  possible  for  a  man 
to  expect,  in  any  sense,  a  favorable  judgment 
of  God  upon  his  life?  If  God  makes  any 
separation  of  men  in  the  world  to  come,  he 
certainly  cannot  divide  them  into  perfect  and 
imperfect  men.  Judged  by  any  complete 
standard,  all  are  imperfect.  Or  if,  without 
separation,  God  in  any  sense,  in  the  most 
inner  way,  passes  judgment,  how  does  ap- 
proval fall  upon  any?  And  upon  whom  does 
it  fall?  Must  not  every  man  who  wishes  to 


154       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

be   clear  and   honest  with   himself  fairly  face 
these  questions? 

And  Christ's  own  thought  of  God  as 
Father  must  be  our  key  here.  And  the 
matter  may  well  be  counted  worth  a  more 
careful  analysis  than  it  often  gets.  How 
does  a  father  distinguish  between  what  he 
calls  an  obedient  and  a  disobedient  child? 
Both  are  faulty.  How  in  any  fair  sense  may 
one  be  called  obedient?  To  the  earthly 
father,  that  child  is  called  an  obedient  child, 
not  who  is  deliberately  setting  his  will  against 
his  father's  with  no  intention  to  cooperate 
with  the  father's  purpose  for  him,  but  whose 
loyal  intention  is  to  do  the  father's  will,  really 
to  cooperate  with  the  father  in  the  father's 
own  purpose  for  the  child's  life.  When, 
now,  this  child  is  carried  away  by  some  gust 
of  temptation  and  disobeys,  and  then  returns 
in  penitence  to  the  father,  evidently  viewing 
the  sin,  so  far  as  his  experience  allows,  as 
the  father  views  it,  and  heartily  putting  it 
away,  the  father,  either  with  or  without  penalty, 
restores  the  child  to  full  personal  relation  to 
himself;  and  that  is  the  vital  point.  And, 
though  he  neither  judges  the  past  life  as 
without  failure,  nor  expects  the  future  to  be 
without  failure,  he  approves  the  child,  as  in 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE     OF    MEN  155 

a  true  sense  obedient.  He  is  an  approved 
child. 

What  is  it  that  satisfies  the  father  in 
such  a  case?  Upon  what  does  he  rely  in  his 
hope  for  matured  character  in  the  child? 
What,  in  biblical  language,  "covers"  for  the 
father  the  actual  disobediences  of  the  past 
and  the  certain  disobediences  of  the  future, 
and  enables  him  in  a  sense  to  ignore  both 
in  his  approval  of  the  child?  Certainly,  the 
present  purpose  of  the  child,  the  child's 
honest  intention  to  cooperate  with  the  father 
in  the  father's  purpose  for  him.  Yes;  but 
as  certainly,  it  seems  to  the  writer,  not  that 
alone.  The  father's  hope  for  his  child's 
steady  growth  in  righteousness  depends  not 
only  on  the  child's  present  intention,  but 
much  more  upon  the  father's  own  intention 
never  to  give  up  in  his  attempt  at  any  cost 
to  help  that  child  to  conquer  himself.1  The 
father  may  be  said  here  in  a  true  sense  to 
propitiate  himself;  and  his  own  fixed  pur- 
pose has  become  a  partial  substitute  for  the 
wavering  purpose  of  the  child. 

And  the  child's  full  righteousness  is  seen, 
not  merely  in  an  attitude  of  immediate  pres- 
ent obedience,  but  especially  in  his  loyal 

1  Cf.  Romans  8:26-39. 


I$6      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

acceptance  of  his  filial  relation  —  in  his  honest 
surrender  to  his  father's  influence.  And  the 
father  can  now  say,  Because  my  child  accepts 
heartily  his  relation  to  me,  and  honestly  throws 
himself  open  to  it  to  let  it  be  to  him  all  it 
can  and  work  its  own  work  in  him,  I  may 
approve  him;  for  this  relation  to  me  which 
he  so  takes  has  only  to  go  on,  to  work  out 
its  complete  results  in  a  matured  character. 
In  the  hearty  acceptance  of  this  filial  relation 
to  me,  there  is  contained  the  promise  of 
the  end. 

Just  this  attitude  exactly,  and  no  other,  it 
seems  to  the  writer,  God  takes  toward  men 
in  his  revelation  in  Christ.  Christ  is  God's 
own  showing  forth  of  himself.  "God  was  in 
Christ  reconciling  the  world  unto  himself."1 
"Propitiation,"  Beysclag  truly  says,  "is  blot- 
ting out,  making  amends  for  sin  in  God's 
eyes.  Now  what  can  cover  the  sin  of  the 
world  in  God's  eyes?  Only  a  personality  and 
a  deed  which  contain  the  power  of  actually 
delivering  the  world  from  its  sin."2 

We  have  seen,  it  may  be  hoped,  just  how 
God's  self-revealing  in  Christ  does  have  this 
actual  power,  and  becomes,  thus,  a  true  pro- 

1  II  Corinthians,  5:19. 

1  The  Theology  of  the  New  Testament,  Vol.  II,  p.  448. 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  157 

pitiation  in  the  highest  moral  sense,  in  the 
only  sense  in  which  God  can  wish  a  propiti- 
ation, and  in  the  only  sense  in  which  we  can 
ever  need  a  propitiation.  Our  final  hope 
for  that  true  salvation,  which  is  the  sharing 
of  the  life  of  God  and  the  involved  like- 
ness of  character  with  God,  is  in  God's  own 
long-suffering,  redeeming  activity.  Only  as 
that  may  be  remembered,  in  connection 
with  our  surrender  to  it,  may  we  hope 
to  stand  approved  before  the  judgment  of 
God.  We  are  not  judged  alone  before  the 
judgment  of  God.  In  a  very  real  sense  the 
judge  himself  stands  with  us.  Not  what  God 
is  able  to  believe  about  this  man  thought  of 
as  standing  alone,  but  what  he  may  believe 
about  this  man  standing  in  a  living,  surren- 
dering association  with  himself,  is  the  ground 
of  judgment.  We  may  not  separate  here  the 
work  of  God  and  the  work  of  Christ,  as  the 
New  Testament  does  not  separate  them.  In 
constant  reliance  upon  the  constant  redeem- 
ing activity  of  the  Father  here  and  here- 
after, we  children  go  hopefully  on  our  way. 
Put  into  the  language  of  the  blood  cove- 
nant, where  the  blood  has  all  its  significance 
as  life  —  the  giving  of  life,  the  sharing  of  life, 
the  closest  and  most  indissoluble  union  of 


158      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

lives — this  is  to  say,  there  is  no  atonement,  no 
reconciliation,  no  remission  of  sins,  no  for- 
giveness—  and  these  are  all  essentially  identi- 
cal terms  —  without  shedding  of  blood,  that 
is,  without  complete  giving  of  life  on  both 
sides,  Christ  giving  himself  not  only  for  us  in 
seeking  us  out,  but  to  us  in  complete  recon- 
ciliation and  renewal  of  life.  It  means  that 
only  God,  the  very  life  of  God,  sharing  God's 
life,  can  really  save  one  from  his  sins.  God 
must  pour  his  life  into  one,  and  he  does,  in 
Christ. 

This  seems  to  be  the  heart  of  the  whole 
matter;  but  certain  considerations  may  be 
still  added,  as  indicating  how  far  a  purely 
ethical  and  spiritual  view  of  the  atonement 
may  go,  in  meeting  the  human  need  ex- 
pressed in  these  older  terms  of  substitution 
and  propitiation. 

There  must  be  a  wrath  of  God  against 
wilful  sin,  a  complete  disapproval  of  it,  and 
all  the  more  because  God  loves  the  sinner. 
God  is  a  consuming  fire  for  sin  in  us,  because 
he  loves  us.  That  wrath  cannot  be  propiti- 
ated, that  disapproval  cannot  be  satisfied,  in 
any  effective  way,  so  long  as  the  sin  con- 
tinues. The  punishment  of  the  sin  in  its 
inevitable  consequences,  will  go  on  in  the 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE     OF    MEN  1 59 

very  fidelity  of  God.  But  for  any  real  satis- 
faction of  God,  the  sin  itself  must  cease,  and 
there  must  be  assurance  of  righteousness  to 
come.  The  sinner  must  come  to  share  God's 
hatred  of  the  sin  and  God's  positive  purpose 
of  love.  Hence  the  expiation  of  the  sin, 
the  propitiation  of  the  wrath  of  God,  the 
satisfaction  of  God — so  far  as  these  terms 
still  have  meaning,  and  so  far  as  they  express 
Christ's  work— consist  (i)  in  winning  men 
to  repentance,  to  sharing  God's  hatred  of 
their  sin,  (2)  in  helping  men  to  a  real  power 
against  sin,  and  (3)  in  the  assurance  of  per- 
fecting righteousness  which  is  contained  in 
the  relation  to  God  honestly  accepted  by  men. 
When,  now,  the  unfilial  spirit  is  thus  changed 
into  a  completely  filial  spirit  —  through  the 
fullest  acceptance  by  the  child  of  the  father's 
purpose  for  him,  and  through  the  child's 
throwing  himself  completely  open  to  the  in- 
fluence of  the  father — the  personal  relation 
is  thereby  inevitably  changed,  personal  recon- 
ciliation is  achieved.  It  is  impossible  to  think 
it  otherwise.  And  so  the  chief  pain  in  the 
previous  relation  is  done  away  both  for  God 
and  man  ;  though  the  punishment,  in  the 
consequences  of  sin  in  other  respects,  is  not 
thereby  set  aside. 


160       THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

But,  further,  so  far  now  as  the  power  of 
this  new  personal  relation  to  God  in  Christ 
begins  actively  to  counteract  the  conse- 
quences of  sin  in  us,  as  it  will  assuredly  do, 
God's  work  in  Christ  becomes  a  direct  sub- 
stitute for  that  punishment  of  us  that  would 
else  inevitably  follow.  And  yet  the  process 
is  wholly  ethical ;  for  the  results  of  righteous- 
ness can  actually  occur  in  us,  only  in  so 
far  as  we  come  into  harmony  with  Christ's 
purpose  for  us. 

Even  so  far,  we  may  believe,  does  the 
social  consciousness,  in  its  emphasis  upon 
the  mutual  influence  of  persons  go,  in  lead- 
ing us  into  the  secret  of  the  attainment  of 
character — into  the  heart  of  God's  redemption 
of  men. 


IV.    MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    FOR    GOOD    IN    OUR 
PERSONAL    RELATION    TO    GOD 

What,  now,  in  the  second  place,  does  the 
mutual  influence  of  men  for  good  mean  for 
theology  in  the  individual  relation  to  God? 
Here  it  may  be  said  at  once,  that  faith  is  as 
directly  contagious  as  character. 

i.  In  Coming  into  the  Kingdom. — We  are 
introduced  through  others  into  all  spheres  of 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE    OF     MEN  l6l 

value,  including  friendship  even  with  God. 
In  the  atmosphere  of  those  who  already  feel 
the  value,  our  interest  is  aroused;  we  find  it 
possible  at  least  to  take  those  initial  steps  of 
a  dawning  attention,  which  give  the  value 
opportunity  to  make  its  own  impression  upon 
us,  and  bring  us  to  an  appreciation,  to  a  faith 
of  our  own.  Only  so  is  that  most  difficult 
of  all  tasks  in  the  redemption  of  a  man  — 
that  first  stirring  of  a  new  appetite,  a  new 
desire,  a  new  aspiration,  a  new  ideal  — 
accomplished. 

We  are  members  one  of  another  here  to 
an  extent  that  deserves  ever  fresh  emphasis. 
We  cannot  too  often  say  to  ourselves,  Had  it 
not  been  that  there  were  those  who  actually 
entered  into  the  meaning  of  the  revelation 
of  God  in  Christ — who,  in  John's  language, 
"beheld  his  glory" — the  record  of  that  revela- 
tion never  could  have  come  down  to  us. 
Christianity  must  have  perished  at  its  birth. 
"Hence,"  in  the  vital  language  of  Herrmann, 
"the  picture  of  his  inner  life  could  be  pre- 
served in  his  church  or  *  fellowship '  alone. 
But,  further,  this  picture  so  preserved  can  be 
understood  only  when  we  meet  with  men  on 
whom  it  has  wrought  its  effect.  We  need 
communion  with  Christians  in  order  that, 


l62      THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

from  the  picture  of  Jesus  which  his  Brother- 
hood has  preserved,  there  may  shine  forth 
that  inner  life  which  is  the  real  heart  of  it. 
It  is  only  when  we  see  its  effects,  that  our 
eyes  are  opened  to  its  reality  so  that  we  may 
thereby  experience  the  same  effect.  Thus 
we  never  apprehend  the  most  important  ele- 
ment in  the  historical  appearance  of  Jesus 
until  his  people  make  us  feel  it.  The  testi- 
mony of  the  New  Testament  concerning 
Jesus  is  the  work  of  his  church,  and  its  ex- 
position is  the  work  of  the  church,  through 
the  life  which  that  church  develops  and 
gains  for  itself  out  of  this  treasure  which  it 
possesses."1 

The  Christian  is  no  Melchizedek,  then, 
without  father  or  mother ;  he  comes  into  life 
in  a  community  of  life,  and  usually,  more- 
over, through  the  personal  touch  of  some 
other  individual  life.  It  is  the  one  primal 
law,  of  life  through  life. 

2.  In  Fellowship  within  the  Kingdom. — And 
not  only  in  coming  into  the  kingdom,  but 
also  within  the  religious  fellowship  of  the 
kingdom,  we  are  emphatically  members  one 
of  another.  In  bringing  us  into  that  love 
which  is  God's  own  life,  God  evidently  has 

lThe  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  61;   cf.  p.  87. 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF     MEN  163 

no  intention  of  allowing  us  to  cut  ourselves 
off  from  our  brethren,  to  climb  up  to  heaven 
by  some  little  individual  ladder  of  our  own. 
That  humility  or  open-mindedness,  which  con- 
stitutes the  first  beatitude  and  the  initial  step 
into  the  kingdom,  and  that  self-sacrificing 
love,  which  constitutes  the  last  beatitude  and 
the  crown  of  the  Christian  life,  are  both  pos- 
sible and  cultivable  only  in  personal  relations 
to  others.  No  man  ever  got  them  alone. 
And,  for  this  very  reason,  in  the  discussion  of 
the  religious  life,  we  found  the  New  Testa- 
ment guarding  most  carefully  against  all  over- 
estimation  of  marvelous  experiences  as  such. 
For  these  tended  to  make  a  man  feel  that 
he  had  such  an  individual  ladder  of  his  own 
to  heaven,  and  had  no  need,  consequently, 
of  his  brethren ;  and  so  led  him  into  the  very 
reverse  of  the  fundamental  Christian  quali- 
ties— into  unteachableness  instead  of  humility 
and  open-mindedness,  and  into  censorious- 
ness  instead  of  love.  That  objective  attitude 
which  is  essential  in  all  character  and  work 
and  happiness,  cannot  be  unimportant  in  our 
specifically  religious  life. 

Even  in  this  most  individual  relation  to 
God,  then,  men's  outlook  is  varied  and  but 
partial.  We  need  to  share,  and  can  share,  one 


164      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

another's  visions.  The  meaning  of  the  many- 
sidedness  of  even  a  great  human  personality 
gets  home  to  us  only  so — through  the  various 
impressions  gained  by  different  men.  Much 
more  can  God  be  revealed  to  us,  even  ap- 
proximately, only  so.  The  great  and  surpass- 
ing value  of  the  New  Testament  lies  exactly 
herein,  that  it  gives  the  varied  impressions 
upon  the  first  Christian  generation  of  God's 
supreme  revelation — the  most  important  indi- 
vidual reflections  of  Christ.  The  New  Tes- 
tament comes  to  stand,  thus,  in  no  merely 
external  and  mechanically  authoritative  rela- 
tion to  the  life  and  faith  of  the  church,  but 
in  the  most  interior  and  vital  relation.  And 
Bible  study  gets  a  new  significance  for  us,  as 
we  see  it,  as  at  one  and  the  same  time  our 
chief  way  to  our  own  vision  of  God's  actual, 
concrete  self-revelation,  and  our  deliverance 
from  our  merely  subjective  dreaming.  We 
come  to  share  in  some  living  way  the  vision 
of  these  others  who  have  seen  most  directly 
and  most  largely. 

3.    In  Intercessory   Prayer.  —  One    particular 
application  to  our  religious  life,  of  this  con- 
viction   of    the   social    consciousness   of    our 
mutual  influence,  seems  worthy  of  mention - 
its   bearing   upon   intercessory   prayer.      Few 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  165 

other  things  in  religion,  one  may  suspect, 
seem  less  real  to  modern  men.  Can  we 
ground  the  matter  a  little  more  deeply  for 
ourselves,  and  give  it  reality,  by  showing  its 
close  connection  with  this  deep-rooted  con- 
viction of  the  social  consciousness? 

We  have  already  seen,1  if  character  and 
love  are  to  be  realities  to  us,  if  the  world  is 
to  be  a  real  training-ground  for  moral  char- 
acter, and  not  a  mere  play-world  —  a  nursery 
continually  set  to  rights  from  without,  that 
we  must  all  be  most  closely  knit  together; 
that  our  choices  must  have  effects  in  the 
lives  of  others ;  that  we  must  be  bound  up 
in  one  bundle  of  life.  And  we  do  affect 
one  another's  lives  in  a  thousand  ways.  In 
manifold  directions  we  condition  the  happi- 
ness and  temptations  of  one  another.  The 
unspoken  mood  of  another,  an  expression  of 
countenance,  a  tone,  an  emphasis,  may  affect 
our  whole  day. 

Now,  if  the  spiritual  world  is  real  at  all, 
it  is  to  be  counted  upon.  Apparently,  there 
is  such  a  thing,  for  example,  as  a  spiritual 
atmosphere  in  an  audience  —  not,  it  may  well 
be  supposed,  a  magical  matter,  but  really 
determined  by  the  tone  of  the  minds  com- 

1  Cf.  above,  p.  32. 


l66       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

posing  the  audience.  The  actual  mood  of 
the  hearers  and  of  the  speaker  makes  a 
difference.  Results,  great  and  important,  are 
so  changed  often  quite  unconsciously.  It 
may  well  be  that  God  is  the  medium  in  all 
this.  The  attitude  of  the  auditors  is  like 
unconscious,  silent  praying  to  God  —  the 
praying  of  their  life,  of  their  spirit. 

But,  whether  one  cares  to  look  at  this 
special  case  in  such  a  way  or  not,  we  are,  in 
any  event,  in  our  spiritual  lives  in  the  deepest 
way  members  one  of  another.  Our  spiritual 
condition  inevitably  affects  others.  We  can- 
not sow  to  the  flesh  and  reap  life  anywhere, 
in  ourselves  or  in  others.  This  is  particularly 
true,  of  course,  of  those  to  whom  we  are 
bound  in  the  closest  life  relations.  That 
this  is  absolutely  true  in  normal  personal 
relations,  when  we  are  in  the  presence  of 
our  friends,  all  of  us  fully  believe.  The 
question  simply  is,  May  this  law  of  mutual 
influence  hold  of  those  bound  up  with  our 
lives  even  when  they  are  distant  from  us  or 
estranged?  In  giving  the  privilege  of  inter- 
cessory prayer,  it  may  well  be  believed,  God 
simply  allows  us  to  be,  even  then,  what  we 
are  always  so  fully  under  other  circumstances 
—  an  influence  upon  them,  a  condition  of 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE     OF    MEN  167 

the  good  and  growth  of  others.  He  simply 
allows  the  regular  law  of  the  spiritual  and  moral 
world  to  hold  without  exception.  We  are  still, 
though  distant  or  estranged,  members  one 
of  another.  It  would  be  a  very  human,  de- 
fective, faulty  God,  who  could  not  put  us 
thus  in  touch  with  our  loved  ones  every- 
where. But  this  is  possible  through  him, 
and  therefore  in  prayer,  and  under  strictly 
ethical  and  spiritual  conditions,  and  not  as  a 
matter  of  mere  whimsical  and  wilful  will  on 
our  part,  and  it  opens  no  door  to  magical 
superstition.  Is  not  the  recognition  of  the 
place  and  value  of  intercessory  prayer,  then, 
an  only  just  extension  of  the  prime  conviction 
of  the  social  consciousness? 


V.    MUTUAL   INFLUENCE    FOR    GOOD    IN   CONFESSIONS 
OF    FAITH 

Theology  has,  once  more,  in  the  third 
place,  to  recognize  the  importance  of  mutual 
influence  for  good  in  confession  of  faith,  in 
creeds.  When,  to-day,  we  seek  the  common 
grounds  of  belief  for  Christian  thinkers,  so 
far  as  the  social  consciousness  really  moves 
us,  we  approach  the  problem  in  a  way  some- 
what different  from  that  of  previous  genera- 


1 68       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

tions.  We  do  not  now  seek  to  elaborate 
a  second,  modern  Westminster  confession ; 
nor  do  we  seek  a  mere  average  of  Chris- 
tian ideas  that  in  reality  expresses  no  one's 
whole  living  thought.  Still  less  is  there 
sought  the  barest  minimum  of  Christian 
belief.  Rather,  in  harmony  with  the  social 
consciousness,  we  seek  a  unity  that  is  organic. 
Our  age,  therefore,  must  recognize  that,  in 
the  confession  of  its  faith  as  in  all  else,  we 
are  genuinely  members  one  of  another.  The 
unity  sought  not  only  tolerates  differences, 
but  welcomes  and  justifies  them,  as  them- 
selves helps  to  a  deeper  unity.  It  believes 
in  equality,  but  not  in  identity. 

It  is  true  that  Christianity  looks  every- 
where to  life ;  and  we  may  be  sure  that  any 
statement  of  Christian  doctrine  that  does  not 
obviously  bear  on  living  is  still  inadequate 
and  incorrect.  It  is  true  that  we  do  well  to 
emphasize  the  strictly  religious  and  practical 
purpose  of  the  Bible ;  that  the  Bible  is  inter- 
ested in  both  nature  and  history  so  far  and 
only  so  far  as  either  reveals  God  and  inspires 
to  godly  living.  It  is  true  that  in  all  Christian 
thinking  Christ  is  our  ultimate  appeal. 

But,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  not  con- 
fuse the  issue.  We  cannot  expect  agreement 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  1 69 

in  detailed  intellectual  statements  even  with 
fullest  loyalty  to  Christ,  and  the  most  earnest 
desire  after  truth.  To  each  his  own  message. 
Nor  can  we  confine,  nor  is  it  desirable  to 
confine,  expressions  of  Christian  faith  to  the 
merely  practical  side.  We  need  to  seek  to 
understand  the  meaning  of  our  Christian  ex- 
perience, not  only  for  the  sake  of  our  intel- 
lectual peace,  but  also  for  the  sake  of  deep- 
ening, our  Christian  experience  itself.  Now, 
it  is  here  contended  that  in  our  confessions 
of  Christian  faith  we  need  one  another,  and 
that  complete  uniformity  of  belief  and  state- 
ment is  both  impossible  and  undesirable. 

i.  Complete  Uniformity  of  Belief  and  State- 
ment Impossible. —  It  is  impossible,  for,  in  the 
first  place,  it  is  difficult,  in  any  case,  to  tell 
our  real  inner  creed.  Some  of  its  most 
important  articles  are  quite  certain  to  be 
implicit  and  unconfessed,  even  to  ourselves. 
The  only  important  creed,  in  the  case  of  the 
individual,  is  that  which  finds  its  expression  in 
life.  There  are  assumptions  implied  in  deeds 
and  spirit;  and  the  spirit  of  a  man  throws 
more  light  on  his  real  creed  than  his  formal 
statements  do.  His  doctrines  may  be  radical, 
his  spirit  thoroughly  constructive,  or  vice 
versa.  If  all  thought  tends  to  pass  into  act, 


170        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

as  modern  psychology  insists,  we  have  a  right 
to  urge  that  those  articles  of  a  man's  creed 
which  find  expression  in  living,  are  for  him 
the  really  important  articles.  The  will  has  a 
creed,  as  well  as  the  intellect,  and  the  real 
creed  is  the  creed  of  life  rather  than  of  lips; 
it  is  wrought  out,  rather  than  thought  out. 
And  this  real,  inner,  living  creed  probably  no 
man  can  state  with  accuracy  even  in  his  own 
case.  And  if  he  is  ever  able  even  approxi- 
mately to  do  so,  it  will  be  at  the  end,  rather 
than  at  the  beginning,  of  his  life's  work  and 
experience. 

Moreover,  complete  uniformity  of  belief 
and  statement  is  impossible,  for,  even  exactly 
the  same  words  cannot  mean  the  same  to 
different  individuals,  for  they  are  interpreted 
out  of  a  different  experience;  they  cannot 
mean  precisely  the  same  thing,  even  to  the 
same  individual,  at  different  times,  for  his 
interpreting  experience,  too,  is  a  changing 
thing.  We  need  sometimes  to  remind  our- 
selves that  there  is  never  any  literal  transfer 
of  thought  from  mind  to  mind,  still  less  from 
statement  to  mind ;  all  thinking  of  even  the 
most  passive  kind  has  an  element  of  creation 
in  it,  for  terms  must  be  interpreted,  and  the 
interpretation  is  inevitably  limited  by  previous 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF     MEN  171 

experience.  Sabatier1  is  quite  right,  there- 
fore, in  asserting  that  credal  statements  must 
change  their  meaning  just  as  words  change. 
But  it  is  to  be  noted  that  this  principle  means 
not  only  that  unalterable  doctrine,  in  this 
sense,  is  impossible  between  the  generations; 
but  also  that  identical  doctrine  is  impossible 
in  the  same  generation. 

Out  of  the  different  experiences,  too,  grow 
the  different  points  of  view  and  the  different 
emphases.  And  these  different  points  of 
view,  and  the  different  distribution  of  em- 
phasis, give  the  same  creed  very  different 
meanings  for  different  men.  It  is  as  impos- 
sible to  avoid  this,  as  it  is  to  avoid  change 
and  individuality.  It  is  true  of  a  man's  creed 
as  of  his  environment,  that  the  only  effective 
portions  are  those  to  which  he  attends — those 
which  he  emphasizes,  not  those  to  which  he 
gives  a  bare  assent ;  and  this  varying  attention 
and  emphasis  cannot  be  the  same  in  different 
individuals.  The  only  logical  outcome  of  a 
thorough-going  attempt  to  reach  an  identical 
creed  is  the  church  of  one  member. 

2.  Complete  Uniformity  of  Belief  and  State- 
ment Undesirable. —  But  complete  uniformity 
of  belief  and  statement  is  not  only  impos- 

1  The  Vitality  of  Christian   Dogmas  and  their  Power  of  Evolution. 


172        THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

sible;  it  is  undesirable.  For,  in  the  first 
place,  it  is  only  by  these  differing  but  sup- 
plementary finite  expressions  that  we  can 
approximate  to  the  infinite  truth.  Like  Leib- 
nitz's mirrors  in  the  market-place,  it  is  only 
by  combining  the  points  of  view  of  all  that 
a  complete  representation  is  possible.  We 
need  one  another  here,  as  elsewhere ;  we 
need  the  fellowship  of  the  church,  and  of 
the  whole  church ;  the  strictly  individual  view 
must  be  fragmentary.  Our  message  needs 
the  supplement  of  the  messages  of  others ; 
through  each  member  God  has  something 
unique  to  say.  They  without  us,  we  without 
them,  are  not  to  be  made  perfect.  We  need 
to  share,  in  such  measure  as  is  possible,  the 
experiences  of  others ;  but  this  is  possible 
only  through  vital  contact. 

Moreover,  we  are  not  to  forget  how  truth 
comes — not  by  surrender  of  convictions,  not 
by  the  silence  of  each,  but  by  each  standing 
earnestly  for  the  truth  which  is  given  to  him, 
in  a  union  of  conviction  and  charity.  For 
only  he  who  has  convictions  can  be  tolerant, 
as  only  he  who  has  fears  can  be  courageous. 

Once  more,  we  cannot  and  must  not  simply 
repeat  each  other.  Nothing  is  so  fatal  to 
spiritual  life  as  dishonesty.  To  attempt  an 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF     MEN  173 

identical  creed  involves  something  of  such 
untrue  repetition  of  the  experience  of  others. 
For,  as  Herrmann  has  said,  doctrines  are  an 
expression  of  life  already  present,  and  are  of 
value  only  so ;  they  are  not  themselves  a  con- 
dition of  life.  If  the  doctrines  we  profess 
are  not  the  honest  expression  of  a  real  life  in 
us,  they  are  a  hindrance,  not  a  help.  "Con- 
scious untruth  tends  to  drive  from  Christ." 

For  every  one  of  these  reasons,  now,  it  is 
positively  undesirable  to  forbid  varying  theo- 
ries or  to  check  the  varied  expressions  of 
Christian  faith,  whether  in  accordance  or  not 
with  certain  standard  formulas.  A  growing 
life  requires  a  growing  expression,  which 
must  be  justified  by  its  history,  not  dogmati- 
cally by  reference  to  some  supposed  fixed 
standard  of  doctrine  in  the  past.  The  very 
meaning  and  health  of  Christian  fellowship 
demand  that  we  should  welcome  and  en- 
courage the  honest  expression  of  the  varied 
manifestations  of  the  One  Spirit,  that  we  may 
be  the  more  certain  to  get  the  whole  truth, 
the  whole  life  which  God  intends.  We  are 
members  one  of  another,  in  doctrine  as  in 
life. 

It  becomes  increasingly  clear,  thus,  where 
the  real  Christian  unity  is,  and  where  the 


174        THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

common  grounds  of  Christian  belief  must  be 
sought.  The  real  unity  of  Christians  is  in 
their  common  life,  in  the  common  experi- 
ence, in  the  possession  of  the  common  per- 
sonal self-revelation  of  God  in  Christ,  in  the 
inworking  of  the  One  Spirit.  It  is  the  mean- 
ing of  this  one  central  Christian  experience, 
which  we  strive  to  express  in  our  doctrinal 
statements.  Our  expressions  must  vary;  the 
life,  the  personal  relation  to  God,  is  one. 
The  best  analogy  we  have  of  the  case  lies  in 
what  the  same  great  friend  means  to  differ- 
ent persons.  Our  creeds  are  at  best  poor 
and  partial  expressions  of  the  meaning  for 
us  of  the  divine  friendship,  of  God's  self- 
revelation  to  us.  It  is,  then,  precisely  in  our 
Christian  experience  and  in  that  personal 
relation  to  God  revealed  in  Christ  which 
makes  a  man  a  Christian  at  all,  that  all  the 
common  grounds  of  Christian  belief  lie. 

The  solution  of  Christian  unity  here,  that 
is,  is  not  by  increasing  abstraction,  but  by 
frank  concreteness ;  not  by  false  simplicity, 
but  by  living  fullness;  not  by  relation  to 
propositions,  but  by  relation  to  facts ;  not  by 
emphasis  on  natural  religion,  but  by  empha- 
sis on  historical  religion ;  not  by  bringing 
nature  into  prominence,  but  human  nature; 


THE     MUTUAL     INFLUENCE     OF     MEN  175 

not  by  relation  to  things,  but  by  relation  to 
persons,  to  the  one  great  world  fact,  the  one 
person,  to  Christ.  "I  am  the  Way."  The 
Christian  faith  is  faith  in  a  person ;  the  Chris- 
tian confession  of  faith  is  confession  of  Christ. 
And  if  we  are  really  in  earnest  with  this  word 
Christian,  we  already  have  our  basis  of  unity 
in  our  personal  relation  to  Christ,  our  com- 
mon Lord.  But  that  personal  relation  to 
God  in  Christ  is  always  more  than  a  credal 
statement  can  express,  though  we  may  never 
cease  to  attempt  such  expression;  and  for  the 
sake  of  the  larger  realization,  by  ourselves  and 
by  the  church,  of  the  meaning  of  the  per- 
sonal relation  to  Christ,  we  must  welcome 
every  honest  expression  of  his  Christian  life 
by  another.  Altogether,  we  shall  at  best 
but  dimly  shadow  forth  its  full  meaning. 

And  such  a  concrete  relation  to  the  per- 
sonal Christ  is  a  far  better  test  of  genuine 
Christian  faith  than  any  creed,  whether  more 
or  less  elaborate,  since  in  the  personal  rela- 
tion character  inevitably  comes  out ;  and  any 
test  that  allows  even  for  the  moment  the 
ignoring  of  the  ethical,  cannot  remain  even 
intellectually  adequate,  for  Christian  doctrine 
looks  always  and  certainly  to  life.  Even 
if  one  is  thinking  only  of  the  correct  intel- 


1 76       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

lectual  expression  of  the  common  Christian 
life  —  the  maintenance  of  orthodoxy,  so  far 
as  that  is  possible  to  us  —  it  should  be 
remembered  that  the  most  conservative  of 
all  influences  is  love  of  a  person,  and,  by  no 
means,  subscription  to  a  set  of  propositions. 
Would  Christ  so  think?  Would  he  so 
speak?  —  these  are  questions  far  more  cer- 
tain to  keep  Christian  thinking  true,  than  any 
intellectual  test  of  man's  devising. 

We  do  not  expect,  therefore,  we  do  not 
seek,  any  common  grounds  of  belief  for 
Christian  thinkers,  other  than  are  involved 
in  the  simple  fact  that  we  are  Christians  at 
all,  in  the  common  recognition  of  the  reve- 
lation of  God  in  Christ  —  of  the  Lordship  of 
Christ.  We  confess  Christ.  For,  "no  man 
can  say,  Jesus  is  Lord,  but  in  the  Holy 
Spirit."  And  "other  foundation  can  no  man 
lay,  than  that  which  is  laid,  which  is  Jesus 
Christ." 

Now,  in  this  common  confession,  it  is 
here  especially  maintained,  we  are,  as  every- 
where, "members  one  of  another"  and  need 
one  another;  and  the  unity  we  seek,  there- 
fore, is  not  the  unity  of  identical  credal 
statement  —  which  can  only  make  us  isolated 
atoms  not  necessary  to  one  another — but  the 


THE     MUTUAL    INFLUENCE    OF    MEN  177 

deeper  and  larger  organic  unity  of  the  richly 
varying  manifestations  of  the  common  life 
-in  Christ.  We  may  come,  through  the 
witness  of  another,  to  an  appreciation  of 
Christ  which  is  really  our  own,  but  to  which 
we  should  not  have  come  if  the  other  had 
not  spoken.  Men  do  mutually  influence  one 
another  for  good,  in  their  confessions  of 
Christian  faith. 


VI.  THE  CONSEQUENT  IMPORTANCE  OF  THE 
DOCTRINE  OF  THE  CHURCH 

In  this  recognition  of  the  vital  and  essen- 
tial importance  of  mutual  influence  in  the 
attainment  of  character,  in  the  individual 
relation  to  God,  and  in  creed,  theology  is 
brought  to  a  new  sense  of  the  significance 
of  the  doctrine  of  the  church.  On  the  one 
hand,  it  cannot  derive  its  importance  from 
having  to  do  with  an  unalterably  fixed  and 
infallibly  organized  external  authority;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  it  can  be  no  longer  an 
unimportant  addendum  concerned  only  with 
methods  of  organization  and  government, 
and  with  ecclesiastical  ordinances  and  pro- 
cedure. So  far  as  the  social  consciousness 
has  influence  upon  theology  at  this  point, 


178       THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

theology  must  see  that  the  doctrine  of  the 
church  is  the  doctrine  of  that  priceless,  living, 
personal  fellowship,  in  which  alone  Christian 
character,  Christian  faith,  and  Christian  con- 
fession can  arise  and  can  continue.  The 
doctrine  of  the  church  becomes  thus  the 
doctrine  of  the  very  life  and  growth  of 
Christianity  in  the  world.  It  is  the  doctrine 
of  the  real  kingdom  of  God,  Christ's  own 
great  central  theme. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  INFLUENCE    OF   THE    DEEPENING    SENSE    OF   THE 

VALUE   AND    SACREDNESS    OF   rHE   PERSON 

UPON    THEOLOGY 

IN  the  discussion  of  the  influence  of  the 
social  consciousness  upon  theological  doc- 
trine, we  turn  now  to  ask  concerning  the  third 
element  of  the  social  consciousness,  How 
does  the  deepening  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person  affect  theology? 

And  with  this  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person,  we  may  well  in- 
clude, so  far  as  the  influence  upon  theology 
is  concerned,  the  remaining  elements  of  the 
social  consciousness  —  the  deepening  sense 
of  obligation,  and  of  love.  For,  as  we  have 
already  seen,  the  sense  of  obligation  and  of 
love  follow  so  inevitably  from  a  deep  sense 
of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person, 
that  it  would  be  a  needless  refinement, 
probably,  to  try  to  analyze  out  their  separate 
influence  upon  theological  thinking.  We 
should  find  them  all  leading  us  to  essentially 
the  same  great  emphases. 

(179) 


ISO      THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

When,  now,  through  the  social  conscious- 
ness, the  personal  has  become  the  supreme 
value  for  us,  and  regard  for  it  our  eternal 
motive  and  goal,  we  cannot  fail  to  demand 
that  theology  give  a  real  personality  to  God 
and  man  —  a  consciousness  marked,  in  Pro- 
fessor Howison's  language,  with  "that  recog- 
nition and  reverence  of  the  personal  initiative 
of  other  minds  which  is  at  once  the  sign 
and  the  test  of  the  true  person."1 

I.     THE    RECOGNITION    OF   THE    PERSONAL    IN    MAN 

In  the  first  place,  the  social  sense  of  the 
value  and  sacredness  of  the  person  will 
emphasize  the  full  personality  of  man. 

I.  Man's  Personal  Separateness  from  God. — 
The  sense  of  the  value  of  the  person  cannot 
admit  for  a  moment  such  a  one-sided  empha- 
sis upon  a  universal  cosmic  evolution,  or  upon 
the  immanence  of  God,  as  should  make  im- 
possible a  true  personality  in  man.  It  seeks, 
in  its  view  of  both  God  and  man,  a  really 
"personal  idealism."  It  does  not  forget,  but 
earnestly  asserts,  the  dependence  of  all  other 
spirits  upon  God;  and,  consequently,  looks 
for  no  metaphysical  separateness  in  this  sense 

*  'The  Limits  of  Evolution,  p.  x. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  l8l 

from  God.  But  a  genuine  recognition  of  the 
personality  of  man  does  require  that  man  be 
conceived  as  separate  from  God  in  just  this 
sense:  (i)  that  he  has  a  clear  self-conscious- 
ness of  his  own,  and  (2)  that  he  has  real 
moral  initiative,  which  makes  his  volition 
truly  his  own.  These  two  factors  constitute 
all  of  separateness  that  need  be  demanded 
for  man.  Possessing  these,  he  is  "outside  of 
God"  in  the  only  sense  in  which  a  "personal 
idealism"  feels  concerned  to  assert  separate- 
ness.  But  for  these  factors  it  is  concerned; 
for  without  them,  it  believes,  no  truly  ideal 
view,  no  moral  world,  no  religious  life,  are 
possible. 

2.  Emphasis  Upon  Man's  Moral  Initiative. 
-In  particular,  the  application  of  the  sense 
of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  person  in 
theology,  means  the  emphatic  recognition  of 
the  moral  initiative  of  man  —  of  the  possession 
of  a  real  will  of  his  own.  The  whole  social 
consciousness,  especially  in  this  third  element 
of  it,  rests  upon  the  assumption  that  man  has 
worth,  as  a  being  capable  of  character  as  well 
as  of  happiness,  and  so  deserves  in  some 
worthy  sense  to  be  called  a  child  of  God.  If 
the  social  consciousness  is,  as  we  have  seen, 
with  any  fairness  to  be  called  the  recognition 


1 82       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  the  fully  personal,1  this  reverence  for  the 
personal  initiative  of  men  cannot  be  lacking 
in  it.  Its  influence  upon  theology  at  this 
point,  therefore,  is  hardly  to  be  doubted. 

And  theology  itself  is  vitally  concerned. 
For  the  whole  possibility  of  the  conceptions 
of  government  .and  providence  requires  this. 
These  terms  are  words  without  meaning, 
having  absolutely  no  place  in  theology  or 
philosophy,  if  man  has  no  moral  initiative. 
Nor  should  it  escape  our  notice,  that  we 
strike  at  the  very  root  of  all  possible  rever- 
ence for  God,  if  we  deny  a  real  initiative  to 
man.  We  have  no  possible  philosophic  ex- 
planation of  either  sin  or  error,  consistent 
with  any  real  reverence  for  God,  if  a  true 
human  will  is  denied.2  In  Professor  Bowne's 
vigorous  language :  In  a  system  of  necessity 
"every  thought,  belief,  conviction,  whether 
truth  or  superstition,  arises  with  equal  neces- 
sity with  every  other.  .  .  .  On  this  plane 
of  necessary  effect  the  actual  is  all,  and  the 
ideal  distinctions  of  true  and  false  have  as 
little  meaning  as  they  would  have  on  the 
plane  of  mechanical  forces.  .  .  .  The 

JCf.  above,  pp.  22,  66,  106. 

2 See  especially  Bowne,  Theory  of  Thought  and  Knowledge,  pp. 
239,  377,  378;  James,  The  Will  to  Believe,  pp.  145  ff. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF     THE     PERSON  183 

only  escape  from  the  overthrow  of  reason 
involved  in  the  fact  of  error  lies  in  the 
assumption  of  freedom."  Moreover,  if  real 
human  initiative  is  denied  to  men,  we  con- 
ceive God  as  having  really  less  respect  for 
persons  in  his  dealing  with  them,  than  the 
most  elementary  ethics  requires  of  men  in 
their  relations  to  one  another.  A  one-sided 
doctrine  of  immanence,  thus,  degrades  both 
man  and  God.  It  degrades  man,  in  denying 
to  him  a  true  personality,  and  so  making  him 
simply  a  thing.  It  degrades  God,  in  making 
him  the  real  responsible  cause  of  all  sin  and 
error,  and  in  making  him  treat  possible  per- 
sons as  things.  The  influence  of  the  social 
consciousness,  which  leads  us  to  measure  the 
moral  growth  of  a  man  and  of  a  civilization 
by  the  deepening  sense  of  reverence  for  the 
person,  is  fairly  decisive  at  this  point.  It 
must  see  in  God  the  most  absolute  guarding 
of  man's  personality,  and  especially  of  his 
moral  initiative. 

3.  Man,  a  Child  of  God. — The  Christian 
faith,  that  man  is  a  child  of  God,  is  a  faithful 
expression  of  the  insistence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness upon  the  recognition  of  the  full 
personality  of  man.  It  expresses  both  man's 
entire  dependence  upon  God  for  his  being 


184       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

and  maintenance,  and  at  the  same  time  his 
infinite  value  and  sacredness  as  a  spirit  made 
in  the  image  of  God,  capable  of  indefinite 
progress,  and  capable  of  personal  relation  to 
God.  It  voices  thus  Christianity's  character- 
istic "humbly-proud"  conception  of  man  — 
humble  in  view  of  the  eternal  and  infinite 
plans  of  God;  proud,  as  "called  to  an  imper- 
ishable work  in  the  world."  It  is,  indeed, 
but  a  concrete  statement  of  that  faith  in  love 
at  the  heart  of  things,  and  in  the  all-embrac- 
ing plan  of  a  faithful  God,  which  we  found 
required,  if  the  social  consciousness  itself  was 
to  have  any  justification.1 

II.    THE    RECOGNITION    OF    THE    PERSONAL 
IN    CHRIST 

In  the  second  place,  under  this  impulse  of 
the  sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the 
person,  theology  is  likely  to  insist  on  the  rec- 
ognition of  the  personal  in  the  conception 
of  Christ. 

I.  Christ  a  Personal  Revelation  of  God. — 
This  recognition  of  the  personal  in  Christ 
will  mean,  first,  that  we  are  to  conceive  Christ 
as  a  personal  revelation  of  God,  rather  than  as 

*Cf.  above,  p.  44  ff 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  185 

containing  in  himself  a  divine  substance.1  It 
cannot  forget,  that  if  God  is  a  person,  and 
men  are  persons,  the  adequate  self-revelation 
of  God  to  men  can  be  made  only  in  a  truly 
personal  life ;  and  that  men  need  above  all,  in 
their  relation  to  God,  some  manifestation  of 
his  ethical  will,  and  this  can  be  shown  only 
in  the  character  of  a  person.  A  merely  meta- 
physical conception  of  the  divinity  of  Christ 
in  terms  of  substance  or  essence,  as  these  are 
commonly  thought,  must,  therefore,  wholly 
fail  to  satisfy.  We  must  be  able  to  recognize 
and  bow  before  the  personal  will  of  the  per- 
sonal God  revealed  in  Christ,  if  we  are  really 
to  find  God  through  him.  A  strong  sense  of 
the  personal,  then,  such  as  the  social  con- 
sciousness evinces,  must  see  in  Christ,  above 
all,  a  personal  revelation  of  a  person. 

2.  Emphasizing  the  Moral  and  Spiritual  in 
Asserting  the  Supremacy  of  Christ. — This  im- 
plies that  the  dominant  sense  of  the  value  and 
sacredness  of  the  person  will  certainly  tend 
to  bring  into  prominence  the  moral  and 
spiritual  in  asserting  the  supremacy  of  Christ, 
rather  than  the  metaphysical  or  the  simply 
miraculous.  So  far  as  these  latter  come  into 
its  representation  at  all,  they  will  follow  rather 

1See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  pp.  241  ff. 


1 86      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

than  precede,  and  be  accepted  because  of 
the  moral  and  spiritual,  or  as  simply  work- 
ing hypotheses  enabling  us  to  bring  into  a 
thought-unity  what  we  have  to  recognize  in 
the  moral  and  spiritual  realm.  If  one  faces 
the  matter  fully  and  frankly,  is  it  not  plain 
that  Christians  of  all  shades  of  belief  are  in- 
creasingly finding  the  real  reason  for  their 
faith  in  Christ  in  his  moral  and  spiritual 
supremacy?  Many  may  choose  to  express 
their  faith  in  him,  when  once  reached,  in 
terms  of  the  miraculous  or  metaphysical ;  but 
the  miraculous  and  the  metaphysical  are  not 
the  primary  reasons  for  their  faith.  It  is  the 
inner  spirit  of  Christ  himself  which  really 
masters  us  and  calls  out  our  confident  faith 
and  our  eager  submission.  And  it  is  only 
when  we  have  already  gotten  this  sense  of 
the  stupendousness  of  his  personality,  that 
the  so-called  miraculous  in  his  life  becomes 
to  our  thought  natural  and  fitting,  and  we 
are  driven  to  think  him  standing  in  some 
unique  relation  to  God  and  so  requiring  to 
be  conceived  in  unique  metaphysical  terms. 
It  is  easy,  no  doubt,  to  indulge  in  a  false 
polemic  against  the  miraculous  and  metaphys- 
ical. One  of  the  surest  bits  of  autobiogra- 
phy we  have  from  Christ,  the  narrative  of 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  187 

the  temptations,  implies,  as  Sanday  has 
acutely  pointed  out,1  the  clear  consciousness 
on  the  part  of  Christ  of  the  possession  of 
what  we  call  supernatural  powers.  It  is  a 
far  less  simple  problem  to  rid  the  gospels 
of  the  miraculous  element,  than  our  age, 
with  its  greatly  exaggerated  estimate  of 
the  mathematico- mechanical  view  of  the 
world,  is  likely  to  think.  The  so-called 
miraculous  in  connection  with  Christ  is  not 
to  be  impatiently  and  dogmatically  set  aside.2 
So,  too,  the  demand  of  thought,  that  we 
form  finally  some  metaphysical  conception  of 
the  great  personality  which  we  meet  in  Christ 
cannot  be  denied  as  wholly  illegitimate.  All 
this  is  to  be  freely  granted  and  asserted. 

But  it  is  of  the  greatest  importance  for 
Christian  thought,  that  it  still  keep  Christ's 
own  absolute  subordination  of  both  the  mi- 
raculous and  metaphysical  to  the  moral  and 
the  spiritual.  The  same  narrative  of  the 
temptation,  that  so  clearly  implies  super- 
natural powers  in  Christ,  has  its  whole  point 
in  Christ's  answering  determination  abso- 
lutely to  subordinate  these  supernatural 
powers  to  moral  and  spiritual  ends.  His 

Castings,  Dictionary  of  the  Bible,  Vol.  II,  p.  626. 

2  See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  Chaps. VI  and  VII. 


1 88       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

whole  ministry  evinces  the  greatest  pains 
upon  this  point.  And  he  evidently  thinks  a 
theory  of  his  metaphysical  relation  to  God 
(as  ordinarily  conceived)  of  so  little  vital 
importance  that  even  such  slight  hints  as  we 
get  of  it  in  the  New  Testament  apparently 
do  not  come  from  him  at  all.  The  present 
tendency,  therefore,  naturally  demanded  by 
the  social  consciousness,  to  emphasize  the 
moral  and  spiritual  in  Christ  in  asserting  his 
supremacy,  is  quite  in  harmony  with  Christ's 
own  insistence.  He  will  be  followed  for 
what  he  is  in  himself. 

The  real  supremacy  of  Christ,  his  truest 
divinity,  we  may  be  sure,  comes  out  for  our 
time  in  those  statements  which  we  are  able 
to  make  concerning  his  inner  spirit.  Here, 
and  here  only,  the  real  power  of  his  person- 
ality gets  hold  upon  us.  What  are  these 
grounds  of  the  supremacy  of  Christ?  How 
is  it  that  we  come  to  God  through  him? 

3.  The  Moral  and  Spiritual  Grounds  of  the 
Supremacy  of  Christ.1 — (i)  In  the  first  place, 
Jesus  Christ  is  the  greatest  in  the  greatest  sphere, 
that  of  the  moral  and  spiritual;  and  this,  by 

1  I  aim  here  to  bring  out  with  some  fullness  the  significance  of  the 
propositions  briefly  summarized  in  the  Reconstruction  in  Theology, 
p.  244;  and  I  venture  to  repeat,  also,  two  quotations  from  that  book, 
because  they  fit  so  closely  into  the  argument  here. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  1 89 

common  consent  of  all  men.  Both  the  depth 
and  the  consensus  of  conviction  concerning 
Christ  are  profoundly  significant,  If  our  earth 
has  ever  seen  one  of  whom  it  could  be  truly 
said,  He  is  a  moral  and  spiritual  authority, 
preeminently  the  one  great  authority  in  this 
greatest  sphere, — that  person  is  Jesus  Christ. 
Seeing  the  moral  problem  more  broadly  than 
any  other  ever  saw  it,  tracing  the  motives  of 
life  more  deeply  than  any  other  ever  traced 
them,  applying  those  principles  of  the  life 
which  he  sees  with  a  tact  and  delicacy  and 
skill  that  no  other  ever  approached,  speaking 
with  an  authority  in  this  moral  and  spiritual 
sphere  to  which  no  other  can  for  a  moment 
lay  claim, — this  man  is  easily  the  greatest  in 
the  greatest  sphere. 

It  is,  perhaps,  to  say  only  the  same  thing 
in  a  little  different  way,  when  one  says  with 
Fairbairn,  that  Christ  is  transcendent  among 
founders  of  religion,  "and  to  be  transcendent 
here  is  to  be  transcendent  everywhere,  for 
religion  is  the  supreme  factor  in  the  organ- 
izing and  the  regulating  of  our  personal  and 
collective  life."1  The  present  age  is,  more 
than  any  other,  the  age  of  the  scientific  study 
of  religion.  The  last  forty  years,  indeed, 

1  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  378. 


1 90      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

have  seen  such  attention  to  the  study  of 
comparative  religion  as  the  world  never  saw 
before.  What  has  been  the  outcome  of  that 
study?  To  make  the  relative  position  of 
Jesus  among  the  founders  of  religion  lower? 
I  do  not  so  understand  it.  No,  the  outcome 
is  such  that  it  is  a  manifestly  inadequate 
statement  to  say,  that  he  is  transcendent 
among  the  founders  of  religion.  The  very 
most  that  we  may  hope  to  say  about  the 
founder  of  any  other  religion  is,  that  in  some 
single  particular  at  a  long  distance  he  can 
be  brought  into  comparison  with  Jesus.  But 
let  one  think  for  a  moment  what  it  means 
for  a  man  to  be  a  founder  of  religion.  We 
talk  of  leadership.  Do  we  know  what  a 
founder  of  religion  does?  He  makes  the 
light,  in  which  millions  of  men  look  upon 
all  the  events  of  their  life,  in  which  they 
see  the  past  of  the  world's  history,  in  which 
they  look  forward  to  the  entire  future.  The 
very  mood  and  atmosphere  of  men's  lives 
are  determined  by  these  founders  of  religion ; 
and  among  these  preeminent  leaders,  Jesus, 
beyond  all  mistake,  is  transcendent. 

Let  the  nature  of  his  kingdom,  too,  be 
his  witness.  He  calmly  aims  to  found  a 
kingdom  that  shall  be  spiritual,  universal, 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  IQI 

eternal.  One  must  face  the  fact  that  this 
man  of  Nazareth  in  Syrian  Galilee,  purposes 
in  coolness  of  deliberation  to  found  a  king- 
dom that  shall  be  absolutely  spiritual,  that 
shall  make  no  appeal  to  any  of  the  lower 
elements  of  man;  one  must  see  that  this 
man,  in  those  temptations  through  which  he 
passed  concerning  the  form  of  his  work, 
deliberately  set  aside  the  kingdom  by  bread, 
the  kingdom  by  marvel  and  ecstasy,  and  the 
kingdom  by  force,  and  purposed  to  found  a 
kingdom  solely  upon  moral  and  spiritual 
forces.  And  observe  that  he  confidently 
expects  this  kingdom  to  be  universal  —  ap- 
pealing to  men  of  all  races  and  of  all  times, 
and  to  be  eternal  —  still  standing  when  all 
else  shall  have  passed  away.  And  upon  his 
belief  in  this  character  of  his  kingdom  he 
stakes  his  life,  and  calmly  gives  to  himself 
as  the  goal  of  his  life  the  establishment  of 
just  such  a  kingdom ;  and  remains  to  the 
end  confident  of  his  success.  The  mere 
vitality  of  will  in  such  a  purpose  is  hard  to 
take  in,  and  alone  may  well  give  us  pause. 

And  because  he  is  the  greatest  in  the 
greatest  sphere,  transcendent  among  found- 
ers of  religion,  the  founder  of  a  kingdom 
spiritual,  universal,  and  eternal,  he  becomes 


IQ2      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

for  us  a  "personalized  conscience,"  a  spirit- 
ual, moral  authority  for  us  even  beyond  our 
own  conscience  —  an  authority  that  grows 
upon  us  with  our  growth,  and  submission  to 
which  is  earth's  highest  moral  test. 

(2)  And  there  must  be  added  to  this  first 
proposition,  that  Jesus  is  the  greatest  in  the 
greatest  sphere,  a  second :  He  alone  is  the 
sinless  and  impenitent  one.  And  it  is  to  be 
noticed  that  it  is  this  man  who  sees  more 
clearly  than  any  other  the  moral  and  spiritual, 
who  knows,  as  no  other  does,  what  character 
is  and  what  moral  life  means, —  it  is  he,  who 
claims  to  be  the  sinless  one.  No  other  ever 
intelligently  made  this  claim;  for  no  other 
was  it  ever  intelligently  made.  The  words 
of  the  great  historian  Ranke  seem  to  us  to  be 
simple  truth  when  he  says:  "More  guiltless 
and  more  powerful,  more  exalted  and  more 
holy  has  naught  ever  been  on  earth  than  his 
conduct,  his  life,  and  his  death.  The  human 
race  knows  nothing  that  could  be  brought 
even  afar  off  into  comparison  with  it."  Only 
such  an  one  could  intelligently  make  for  him- 
self the  claim  of  sinlessness.  And  for  no 
other  was  this  claim  of  sinlessness  ever  intel- 
ligently made.  Men  know  each  other  too 
well  to  make  it  for  others  when  moral  con- 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  193 

sciousness  has  fully  awakened.  But  he  fights 
his  battle  in  the  wilderness,  and  there  is  no 
record  of  failure  so  far  as  he  himself  can  see 
it,  and  none  that  disciple  ever  ascribed. 

And  this  claim  of  sinlessness  for  Christ  is 
to  be  urged,  not  so  much  because  of  any 
special  statements  by  Christ  as  because  of 
that  remarkable  fact  to  which  Dr.  Bushnell 
has  called  attention, — his  impenitence.  Jesus 
alone  among  all  good  men  is  a  man  of  "im- 
penitent piety;"  and  by  this  he  is  marked 
off  absolutely  from  every  other  good  man. 
What  happens  in  the  life  of  any  other  good 
man  is  this :  that,  as  he  goes  forward,  the  sense 
of  sin  grows  upon  him,  the  ideal  rises  before 
him  and  he  feels  increasingly  that  his  own 
life  is  inferior  to  it.  Of  Jesus  this  is  not 
true.  He  shows  no  sign  of  consciousness  of 
failure.  There  is  no  evidence  that  he  feels 
that  he  has  fallen  short  in  any  degree.  He 
is  absolutely  without  that  universal  character- 
istic of  all  other  good  men,  absolutely  without 
penitence.  Contrast  him  for  a  moment  with 
the  man,  who  perhaps  all  would  agree  was 
the  greatest  of  all  his  disciples,  the  man  to 
whose  devotion  there  seems  to  be  no  limit — 
the  Apostle  Paul;  and  notice,  that  years  after 
his  persecution  of  the  church  and  of  the 

M 


194       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

cause  of  Jesus,  with  growing  sense  of  what 
Jesus  is,  and  of  his  own  inexhaustible  debt 
to  him,  there  comes  over  him  with  increas- 
ing, not  lessening,  power  the  sense  of  his 
sin,  and  he  writes  to  the  Ephesians,  "Unto 
me,  who  am  less  than  the  least  of  all  saints, 
was  this  grace  given  me  that  I  might  preach 
unto  the  Gentiles  the  unsearchable  riches  of 
Christ;"  and  in  one  of  the  very  last  letters 
that  comes  down  to  us  from  him,  says  again, 
"Faithful  is  the  saying  and  worthy  of  all  ac- 
ceptation, that  Christ  Jesus  came  into  the 
world  to  save  sinners;  of  whom  I  am  chief." 
What  evidence  have  we  that  Christ  ever  felt 
in  the  slightest  degree  such  penitence? 

(3)  But  more  than  this  is  true.  With  the 
highest  ideal,  Jesus  not  only  does  not  consciously 
fall  short  of  it,  hut  consciously  rises  up  to  it, 
and,  as  Herrmann  says,  "compels  us  to 
admit  that  he  does  rise  to  it."  It  were  very 
much  that  a  man  with  any  ideal,  however 
inferior,  should  be  able  to  say  to  himself,  I 
have  not  fallen  short  of  this  ideal;  but  that 
one,  who  sees  more  clearly  than  any  other 
in  the  realm  of  the  moral  and  spiritual,  and 
who  has  an  ideal  of  simply  absolute  love 
and  of  unbounded  trust  in  God, — that  he 
should  show  not  only  no  consciousness  of 


THE     SACREDNESS     OF    THE     PERSON  IQ5 

falling  short,  but  should  consciously  rise  to 
his  ideal  and  compel  us  to  admit  that  he 
rises  to  it:  this  is  a  fact  unparalleled  in  the 
history  of  the  world.  It  is  far  more  than 
mere  sinlessness;  there  is  here  a  positiveness 
of  moral  achievement  so  great  —  a  fact  so 
tremendous  —  that  we  seem  able  but  feebly 
to  take  it  in. 

(4)  And  even  that  is  not  all.  Jesus  has 
such  a  character  that  we  can  transfer  it  feature 
by  feature  to  God,  not  only  with  no  sense  of 
blasphemy,  not  only  with  no  sense  of  his 
coming  short,  but  with  complete  satisfaction. 
I  do  not  now  ask  at  all  as  to  any  man's 
metaphysical  theory  about  Jesus  Christ;  I 
only  ask  that  it  be  noticed  that  those  who 
question  common  theories  altogether  still 
get  their  ideal  of  God  from  Jesus  Christ; 
and  that  this  is  the  wonderful  thing  that  has 
happened  on  our  earth:  that  thiere  has  once 
lived  a  man  —  daily  moving  about  among 
men,  a  concrete  circumstantial  account  of 
whose  life  in  many  particulars  we  have — the 
features  of  whose  character  one  can  transfer 
absolutely  to  God  and  say,  That  is  what  I 
mean  by  God.  One  simply  cannot  add  any- 
thing to  the  character  of  God  himself  in  the 
highest  moments  of  his  imagination,  that  is 


196      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

not  already  revealed  in  Jesus  Christ.  I  take 
it  that  the  words  of  Fairbairn  are  literally 
true:  he  was  "the  first  being  who  had  real- 
ized for  men  the  idea  of  the  Divine." 
When,  therefore,  Philip  said  to  him,  "Lord, 
show  us  the  Father  and  it  sufficeth  us,"  he 
could  only  reply  as  he  might  any  day  to  us, 
"Have  I  been  so  long  time  with  you,  and 
dost  thou  not  know  me,  Philip?  he  that 
hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the  Father." 

(5)  And  one  cannot  stop  here.  Jesus  is 
consciously  able  to  redeem  all  men.  With  such 
sense  of  the  meaning  of  sin  and  of  moral 
conduct  as  no  other  ever  had,  understanding, 
therefore,  the  sin  and  need  of  men  as  no 
other  ever  did,  and  having  such  a  vision  of 
what  it  is  perfectly  to  share  the  life  of  God 
as  no  other  ever  had,  still,  facing  the  masses 
of  men,  he  could  say  to  himself,  "I  am  able 
to  take  these  men  and  lift  them  into  the  very 
presence  of  God  and  present  them  spotless 
before  the  throne  of  his  glory."  Have  we 
taken  in  what  it  means,  that,  in  the  conscious- 
ness of  a  man  in  form  like  ourselves,  there 
could  be,  even  for  a  moment,  the  actual  be- 
lief that  he  was  the  one  that  was  to  take 
away  the  sin  of  the  world,  and  had  power 
to  redeem  men  absolutely  unto  God?  In 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  IQ7 

another's  words:  "Jesus  knows  no  more  sa- 
cred task  than  to  point  men  to  his  own  per- 
son." He  is  himself  God's  greatest  gift, 
himself  "the  way,  the  truth,  the  life," — not 
only  fighting  his  own  battles,  but  consciously 
able  to  redeem  all  men. 

(6)  This  simply  implies,  as  Dr.  Denison 
has  suggested,  that  Jesus  has  such  God-con- 
sciousness and  such  sense  of  mission  as  would 
simply  topple  any  other  brain  that  the  world  has 
ever  known  into  insanity,  but  which  simply 
keeps  him  sweet,  normal,  rational,  living  the 
most  wholesome  and  simple  and  noble  life 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  How  are  we  to 
explain  that  fact?  On  the  one  hand,  the 
sense  of  being  of  even  a  little  importance  in 
the  kingdom  of  God  proves  singularly  intoxi- 
cating to  men.  How  often,  when  one  is 
strongly  possessed  by  the  idea  that  he  is  a 
special  channel  of  manifestation  for  God,  do 
moral  sanity,  influence,  and  character  all  suf- 
fer! On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  burden 
of  suffering  that  men  can  bear  so  great  as 
suffering  in  the  sin  of  one  loved — thus  bearing 
the  sin  of  another.  But  here  is  one  who  can 
believe  that,  when  men  come  to  him  and 
simply  see  him  as  he  is,  they  catch  their  best 
vision  of  God;  here  is  one  who  bears  con- 


198       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

sciously  the  sin  of  all  men,  and  who  can 
believe  that  he  has  absolute  power  to  revo- 
lutionize the  lives  of  other  men  and  make 
them  what  they  were  meant  originally  to  be, 
children  of  God;  and  yet,  believing  this, 
can,  under  that  consciousness,  keep  sweet  and 
normal,  wholesome  and  simple,  energetically 
ethical  and  thoroughly  rational, —  can  keep 
sane.  Indeed,  he  lives  a  life  so  sane,  that,  to 
pass  even  from  some  of  our  best  religious 
books  into  the  simple  atmosphere  of  the 
story  of  his  life  often  seems  like  passing  from 
the  super-heated,  artificially  lighted,  heavily 
perfumed  and  exhausted  atmosphere  of  the 
crowded  drawing-room  into  the  open  fresh 
air  of  day  under  the  heaven  of  God.  In  the 
very  act  of  the  most  stupendous  self-asser- 
tion, Jesus  can  still  characterize  himself  as 
"meek  and  lowly  of  heart,"  and  we  feel  no 
self-contradiction — so  completely  has  he  har- 
monized for  even  our  unconscious  feeling 
his  transcendent  self-consciousness  and  his 
humble  simplicity  of  life.  Has  the  world 
anywhere  a  phenomenon  comparable  to  this? 
(7)  In  consequence  of  all  this,  Jesus  is  in 
fact  the  only  person  in  the  history  of  the  race  'who 
can  call  out  absolute  trust.  As  little  children, 
we  knew  something  of  what  it  meant  to  have 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF     THE     PERSON  IQQ 

complete  trust.  There  were  a  few  years 
when  it  seemed  to  us  that  there  was  nothing 
in  either  power  or  character  that  was  not 
true  of  our  fathers  and  mothers.  We  soon 
lost  such  trust,  even  as  children.  Is  there 
anyway  back  to  the  childlike  spirit?  Let  us 
ponder  these  golden  words  of  Herrmann: 
''The  childlike  spirit  can  only  arise  within 
us  when  our  experience  is  the  same  as  a 
child's ;  in  other  words,  when  we  meet  with 
a  personal  life  which  compels  us  to  trust  it 
without  reserve.  Only  the  person  of  Jesus 
can  arouse  such  trust  in  a  man  who  has 
awakened  to  moral  self-consciousness.  If 
such  a  man  surrenders  himself  to  anything 
or  any  one  else,  he  throws  away  not  only  his 
trust,  but  himself."  There  has  been  one 
life  lived  on  earth,  in  whose  hands  one  may 
put  himself  with  absolute  confidence  and 
have  no  fear  as  to  the  result.  Jesus,  and 
Jesus  alone,  can  call  out  absolute  trust. 

(8)  Moreover,  Jesus  is  the  only  life  ever 
lived  among  men  in  whom  God  certainly  finds  us, 
and  in  whom  we  certainly  find  God.  And,  once 
again,  I  am  not  now  asking  whether  one  is 
able  to  come  to  any  theory  of  the  nature 
of  Christ.  That  is  a  matter  of  comparative 
indifference.  The  great  fact  is  this:  That 


200      THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

there  has  been  lived  among  us  men  such  a 
life  that,  if  a  man  will  simply  put  himself 
in  the  presence  of  it  and  stay  there,  he  will 
have  brought  home  to  him  with  unmistakable 
conviction  the  fact  that  God  is,  and  is  touch- 
ing him  and  that  he  is  touching  God;  that, 
coupled  with  such  a  sense  as  he  never  had 
before  of  his  sin,  there  will  be  also  the 
sense  of  forgiveness  and  reconciliation  with 
God,  and  so,  such  evidence  of  the  contact 
of  God  with  his  life  as  he  can  find  nowhere 
else.  So  Harnack  believes:  "When  God 
and  everything  that  is  sacred  threaten  to 
disappear  in  the  darkness,  or  our  doom  is 
pronounced ;  when  the  mighty  forces  of 
inexorable  nature  seem  to  overwhelm  us, 
and  the  bounds  of  good  and  evil  to  dissolve ; 
when,  weak  and  weary,  we  despair  of  finding 
God  at  all  in  this  dismal  world, —  it  is  then 
that  the  personality  of  Christ  may  save  us." 
(9)  And  all  this  means,  finally,  that  Jesus 
is  for  us  the  ideal  realized.  Let  not  the  com- 
monplaceness  of  the  words  rob  us  of  their 
meaning.  The  fact  is  far  enough  from  the 
commonplace.  Philosophy  must  always  tell 
us  that  we  have  no  right  to  expect  anywhere 
a  realized  ideal,  except  in  the  absolute  whole 
of  things.  Certainly,  we  never  find  in  any 


THE    SACREDNES&.  OF.    THSr    PERSQX  2OI 

^^£4urQp.i*^£^ 

of  the  inferior  spheres  a  fully  realized  ideal. 
What  does  it  mean,  then,  that  in  this  highest 
of  all  spheres,  the  sphere  of  the  moral  and 
spiritual  life,  we  have  the  ideal  realized;  that 
our  very  highest  vision  is  a  fact?  What  is 
there  that  one  would  add  to,  what,  that  one 
would  take  away  from,  the  life  of  Christ, 
that  it  might  be  more  completely  than  it  is 
the  ideal  realized  ? 

"But  Thee,  but  Thee,  O  Sovereign  Seer  of  time, 
But  Thee,  O  poet's  Poet,  wisdom's  tongue, 
But  Thee,  O  man's  best  Man,  O  love's  best  Love, 
O  perfect  life  in  perfect  labor  writ, 
O  all  men's  Comrade,  Servant,  King  or  Priest, — 
What  if  or  yet,  what  mole,  what  flaw,  what  lapse, 
What  least  defect  or  shadow  of  defect, 
What  rumor,  tattled  by  an  enemy, 
Of  inference  loose,  what  lack  of  grace 
Even  in  torture's  grasp,  or  sleep's,  or  death's, 
Oh,  what  amiss  may  I  forgive  in  Thee, 
Jesus,  good  Paragon,  thou  crystal  Christ?" 

4.  Chrises  Double  Uniqueness. —  It  seems 
hardly  possible  to  do  justice  to  the  facts 
now  passed  in  review,  without  recognizing, 
at  least,  that  they  point  to  a  double  unique- 
ness on  the  part  of  Christ  in  his  relation  to 
God,  reflected  in  his  own  language  concern- 
ing himself  and  in  the  spontaneous  confes- 
sions of  his  disciples  in  all  times.  He  alone, 


202       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

in  the  emphatic  sense,  is  the  Son.  The 
contrasts  between  Christ  and  other  men, 
which  the  simple  facts  of  the  life  and  con- 
sciousness of  Christ  have  compelled  us  to 
make,  naturally,  then,  demand  recognition 
from  thought.  The  recognition  of  the  facts 
is  the  vital  matter,  but  thought  can  hardly 
see  them  unmoved.  How  are  we  to  think 
of  Christ?  With  clear  remembrance,  now, 
that  Christian  teaching  itself  insists  upon  the 
kinship  of  God  and  men ;  that  absolute 
barriers,  therefore,  cannot  anywhere  be  set 
up ;  that  a  revelation  unrelated  to  all  else 
could  be  no  revelation;  and  that  Christ 
himself  often  pointed  out  the  likeness  be- 
tween his  own  life  and  work  and  those  of 
his  disciples; — still  we  may  not  ignore  actual 
differences,  and  must  honestly  strive  to  do 
justice  to  them  in  our  own  conception  of 
Christ.  One  may  not  forget  that  there  is 
much  here  that  we  can  hardly  hope  ever  to 
fathom ;  and  that  into  this  secret  of  Christ's 
relation  to  the  Father  theology  has  often 
tried  to  press  with  a  precision  of  statement 
that  was  quite  beyond  its  possible  knowledge, 
and  that  damaged  rather  than  helped  the 
religious  consciousness ;  but  one  may  try 
to  think  in  simple,  straightforward  fashion 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF     THE     PERSON  2O3 

what  the  facts  mean.  Now  these  actual  and 
momentous  moral  and  spiritual  differences 
already  pointed  out  seem,  at  least,  to  assert, 
I  say,  a  genuine  double  uniqueness  in  Christ. 
Christ's  relation  to  God  is  absolutely  unique, 
that  is,  in  two  senses:  in  the  absolutely 
unique  purpose  of  God  concerning  him ;  in 
the  absolutely  perfect  response  of  Christ  to 
that  purpose.  If  one  chooses  to  use  the 
language,  he  may  say,  that  the  first  unique- 
ness is  metaphysical;  the  second,  ethical.1 

First,  then,  God  has  a  purpose  concerning 
Christ,  that  he  has  concerning  no  other,  for 
he  purposes  to  make  in  him  his  supreme  self- 
manifestation.  This  sets  him  apart  from  all 
others.  His  transcendent  sense  of  God  and 
sense  of  mission  only  correspond  to  the  abso- 
lute uniqueness  of  this  eternal  purpose  of 
God  concerning  him.  We  are  utterly  unable 
to  see  that  they  could  be  borne  by  any  being 
that  we  know  as  man.  He  is  the  manifested 
God—  "the  visible  presentation  of  the  invisi- 
ble God."  This  cannot  be  said,  in  the  same 
sense,  of  any  other.  Now,  our  only  adequate 
statement  of  the  inner  reality — the  essential 
meaning — of  any  being,  can  be  given  only 
in  terms  of  the  purpose  which  God  calls 

1  Cf.  King,  Reconstruction  in   Theology,  pp.  232,  233,  248,  249. 


2O4       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

that  being  to  fulfil.  To  see,  then,  that  God's 
purpose  concerning  Christ  is  absolutely 
unique,  and  that  God's  purpose  is,  to  make 
in  Christ  the  completest  possible  personal 
manifestation  of  himself,  is  to  see  that  Christ's 
essential  relation  to  the  Father  is  absolutely 
his  own,  unshared  by  any  other.  And,  it 
may  be  added,  there  is  no  reason  why  this 
purpose  of  God  concerning  Christ  should 
not  be  regarded  as  an  eternal  purpose, 
eternally  realized. 

But  Christ  is  as  clearly  unique  in  his 
simply  perfect  response  to  this  purpose  of 
God.  Our  facts  seem  to  point  directly  to 
the  conclusion,  that  in  him  there  was  no 
moral  hindrance  to  the  fullness  of  the  reve- 
lation God  would  make  through  him.  His 
life  is  perfectly  transparent,  allowing  the  full 
glory  of  the  character  of  God  to  shine 
through  it.  The  harmony  of  his  will  with 
God's  will  is  complete.  If  it  be  said  that 
this  last  uniqueness  is,  after  all,  only  differ- 
ence in  degree  from  other  men,  it  must  be 
answered,  first,  that  degree  here  is  so  vast  as 
to  be  practically  kind.  This  is  the  perfect 
of  Christ  set  over  against  the  varyingly  im- 
perfect of  all  other  men.  Moreover,  to  ask 
here  for  difference  in  kind  in  any  other 


THE    SACREDNESS    OP     THE    PERSON  2O5 

sense,  is  probably  to  make  an  unintelligent 
and  impossible  demand;  for,  in  the  nature 
of  the  case,  the  relations  involved  are  spir- 
itual and  personal,  and  there  cannot  be,  in 
strictness,  in  the  fulfilment  of  such  relations 
any  real  differences  in  kind. 

5 .  The  Increasing  Sense  of  Our  Kinship  with 
Christ,  and  of  His  Reality. — Side  by  side  with 
this  recognition  of  the  nature  of  Christ's 
uniqueness,  there  deserves  to  be  set,  as  an- 
other outcome  of  the  emphasis  upon  con- 
ceiving Christ  as  a  personal  revelation  of 
God,  the  increasing  sense  of  our  kinship 
with  Christ  and  of  his  reality.  The  connec- 
tion here  is  by  no  means  accidental,  though 
it  may  seem  almost  paradoxical.  We  have 
plainly  come  in  our  day  to  our  clearest  rec- 
ognition of  the  divinity  of  Christ  through 
the  sense  of  his  transcendent  character.  But 
revelation  in  character  requires  the  reality  of 
his  human  life.  The  very  route,  therefore, 
by  which  we  have  most  certainly  reached  our 
sense  of  Christ's  divinity,  leads  also  to  an 
increasing  sense  of  kinship  with  Christ,  and 
so  of  his  reality.  So  long  as  we  seemed 
driven  to  conceive  the  divinity  of  Christ  in 
terms  that  had  no  relation  and  no  meaning 
for  human  life,  just  so  long  must  he  seem 


206       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

to  us  to  be  really  moving  in  another  world 
and  to  take  on  the  unreality  of  that  other 
world  quite  hidden  from  us.  But  now 
Christ's  life  has  meaning;  we  can  enter  into 
it  and  feel  that  it  is  real.  With  all  its  tran- 
scendence, the  life  does  not  move  now  simply 
in  the  sphere  of  the  mysterious.  It  is  no 
unreal  drama,  no  play-struggle, — utterly  fail- 
ing to  meet  our  real  moral  and  spiritual 
needs.  Least  of  all,  in  this  supreme  work 
for  man,  can  the  revealing  life  be  only  a 
show.  It  feels  real.  It  is  real.  And,  with 
clear  sense  of  the  inevitable  inadequacy  of 
the  analogy,  we  still  rest  confidently  in  the 
conviction  that  God's  relation  to  Christ  may 
be  best  conceived  after  the  analogy  of  the 
relation  of  the  Spirit  of  God  to  our  spirits ; 
and  that,  when  we  try  to  press  beyond  that, 
we  are  attempting  to  rise  into  that  sphere  of  a 
supposed  supra-personal,  for  which  we  have  no 
possible  organ  of  vision,  and  where,  therefore, 
we  are  thinking  not  more,  but  less,  truly.1 

With  this  sense  of  the  reality  of  the  per- 
sonal, spiritual  life  of  Christ,  there  naturally 
comes  home  to  us  the  appropriateness  and 
practicability  of  his  ideals.  They  are  seen  to 
belong  to  us  more  surely,  and  properly  to 

1  See  King,  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  p.  209;  and  below,  p.  209. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  2O7 

make  demands  upon  us.  It  is,  probably,  not 
too  much  to  say  that,  under  the  influence  of 
the  social  consciousness,  there  has  been  a 
definite,  growing  approach  to  Christ's  way 
of  thinking,  and  to  his  ideal  of  life.  This 
means  a  consciousness  increasingly  Christian 
in  tone,  and,  therefore,  in  turn,  increasingly 
better  able  to  interpret  the  teaching  and  life 
of  Christ,  and  so  to  give  promise  of  a  more 
Christian  theology.  None  of  us,  probably, 
are  fully  conscious  of  the  more  subtle  in- 
consistencies of  even  our  best  theological 
thinking,  when  measured  by  a  completely 
Christian  spirit.  At  least,  with  the  insist- 
ence upon  Christ  as  a  personal  revealer  of  a 
personal  God,  it  must  become  more  true 
that  the  meaning  of  all  terms  for  the  work 
of  Christ  shall  be  more  clearly  reasonable, 
more  consistently  ethical,  and  more  com- 
pletely spiritual;  and  then  the  immediate 
rooting  of  Christian  theology  in  the  Christian 
religion  can  be  seen  and  felt. 

III.    THE    RECOGNITION    OF   THE    PERSONAL   IN    GOD 

The  sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of 
the  person  must  lead  to  the  special  recogni- 
tion of  the  personal  not  only  in  man  and  in 


208       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

Christ,  but  also  in  God.  We  have  already 
seen  reasons  for  believing  that  the  social 
consciousness  is  peculiarly  bound  strongly 
to  emphasize  the  personality  of  God,  as  in 
the  end  absolutely  essential  to  its  own  justi- 
fication. The  social  consciousness  represents 
an  ethical  movement  that  can  live  only  in  the 
atmosphere  of  the  personal. 

I.  The  Steady  Carrying  through  of  the  Com- 
pletely Personal  in  the  Conception  of  God. 
Guarding  the  Conception. — This  pressure  of 
the  social  consciousness  toward  an  impera- 
tive faith  in  the  fully  personal  God  is  most 
valuable,  as  offsetting  the  tendency  in  many 
quarters  toward  a  scientific  or  even  idealistic 
pantheism  or  monism  that  is  quite  imper- 
sonal. "For,"  in  the  language  of  Professor 
Howison,  "the  very  quality  of  personality  is, 
that  a  person  is  a  being  who  recognizes 
others  as  having  a  reality  as  unquestionable 
as  his  own,  and  who  thus  sees  himself  as  a 
member  of  a  moral  republic,  standing  to 
other  persons  in  an  immutable  relationship 
of  reciprocal  duties  and  rights,  himself  en- 
dowed with  dignity,  and  acknowledging  the 
dignity  of  all  the  rest."1  As  this  is  preemi- 
nently the  spirit  of  the  social  consciousness, 

1  The  Limits  of  Evolution,  p.  7. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  2OQ 

it  is  plain  that  we  have  in  the  social  con- 
sciousness an  increasingly  powerful  motive 
for  guarding  the  full  personality  of  God. 

It  needs  particularly  to  be  noted,  that  we 
know  no  definite  "supra-personal."  Pantheism 
or  any  impersonal  monism  is  forced,  there- 
fore, when  it  leaves  the  personal  conception 
of  God,  to  take  a  lower  line  of  develop- 
ment, not  a  higher.  The  result  is,  that  it  is 
obliged  to  deny  the  highest  attributes  to 
God,  and  then,  as  Browning  is  fond  of 
arguing,  man  steps  at  once  into  the  place 
of  God.  Men  cannot  permanently  remain 
satisfied  with  a  philosophical  view,  of  which 
that  is  the  logical  outcome.  Certainly,  such 
a  view  can  get  no  support  from  the  social 
consciousness,  with  its  deep  conviction  of 
the  supreme  value  and  sacredness  of  the 
person. 

Moreover,  it  is  not  to  be  forgotten,  in  esti- 
mating the  value  of  a  cosmic  monism,  that 
what  the  cosmological  really  means,  ethi- 
cally and  religiously,  to  a  people,  must  always 
depend  upon  their  social  ideals.  The  nat- 
ural in  itself  contains  no  command.  For 
any  effective  vital  interpretation,  therefore, 
even  of  its  impersonal  Absolute,  pantheism 
is  constantly  thrown  back  upon  the  personal. 


210      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

Only  a  clear,  steady  carrying  through  by 
theology  of  the  completely  personal  in  its 
conception  of  God  can  ultimately  satisfy  this 
sense  of  the  value  and  sacredness  of  the  per- 
son. Professor  Nash  does  not  speak  too 
strongly  when  he  says:  "To  fulfil  her  func- 
tion the  church  must  develop  the  doctrine 
of  a  Divine  Personality.  She  has  not  always 
been  true  to  it  in  the  past.  Too  often,  by 
her  sacraments,  by  her  theology,  by  her 
theory  of  inspiration,  she  has  glorified  the 
impersonal."1 

Now,  such  an  attempt,  it  is  perhaps  worth 
saying  once  more,  is  not  to  be  thought  of 
as  a  running  away  from  a  thorough-going 
metaphysical  investigation.  It  rather  takes 
the  ground,  indicated  in  the  earlier  discus- 
sion, of  what  may  be  called,  in  Professor 
Howison's  language,  personal  idealism;  and 
holds  that  spirit,  person,  is  for  us  the  ultimate 
metaphysical  fact :  the  one  reality  to  which 
we  have  immediate  access;  the  reality  from 
which  all  our  metaphysical  notions  are  origi- 
nally derived;  and,  in  consequence,  the  one 
reality  which  we  can  take  as  the  key  to  the 
understanding  of  all  else.  And  it  believes 
that  even  essence  and  substance,  the  great 

1 Ethics  and  Revelation,  p.  270. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  211 

words  of  the  old  metaphysics,  can  be  really 
understood  only  as  they  are  interpreted  in 
personal  terms.  Ultimately,  theology  would 
hold,  this  would  mean  the  interpretation  of 
the  essence  of  things  in  terms  of  the  purpose 
of  God  concerning  them  —  what  he  meant 
them  to  be. 

In  the  attempt,  then,  clearly  and  steadily 
to  carry  through  the  conception  of  God  as 
completely  personal,  theology  may  well  guard 
carefully  certain  points.  In  the  first  place, 
theology  does  not  mean  to  transfer  to  God 
human  limitations ;  rather,  it  conceives  him 
to  be  the  only  complete  personality  with  per- 
fect self-consciousness  and  full  freedom,  no 
part  of  whose  being  is  in  any  degree  foreign 
to  himself.  Nor,  in  the  second  place,  does 
it  mean  to  forget  that  the  personal  relations 
in  which  God  stands  to  other  persons  are 
unique,  and  that,  in  three  definite  respects: 
that  conviction  of  the  love  of  God,  as  of  no 
other,  must  underlie,  as  a  great  necessary 
assumption,  all  our  thinking  and  all  our  liv- 
ing; that  God  is  himself  the  source  of  the 
moral  constitution  of  man,  which  must  thus 
be  regarded  as  an  expression  of  the  personal 
will  of  God,  and  the  personal  relation  to  God 
so  have  universal  moral  implications  such  as 


212       THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

no  other  personal  relation  can  have;  and  in 
that  God  is  such  in  his  universal  love  for  all, 
that  it  is  impossible  to  come  into  right  per- 
sonal relation  to  God,  and  not  at  the  same 
time  come  into  right  relation  to  all  moral 
beings.1 

2.  God  is  Always  the  Completely  Personal 
God. —  If,  now,  theology  is  to  do  justice  to 
the  demands  of  the  social  consciousness  for 
a  full  recognition  of  the  personal  in  God,  it 
must  see  clearly  that  God  is  always  the  com- 
pletely personal  God.  Certain  conclusions, 
not  always  admitted,  are  believed  to  follow 
from  this  position. 

(i)  The  Consequent  Relation  of  God  to  w  Eter- 
nal Truths" — In  the  first  place,  there  can  be 
no  sphere  of  eternal  truths,  thought  of  as 
either  created  outright  by  the  will  of  God, 
or  as  existing  of  themselves  independently  of 
God  and  only  to  be  recognized  by  him. 

The  difficulty  is  not  merely  that  at  least 
one  of  these  views  would  put  God  in  the 
same  dependent  relation  to  truth  as  we  finite 
beings,  and  thus  practically  put  a  God  above 
God.  Nor  is  the  difficulty  merely  that  it 
is  impossible  to  think  the  real  existence  of 
such  a  sphere  of  eternal  truth,  since  truths 

xCf.  King,  Reconstruction  in   Theology,  pp.  205  ff. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  213 

or  laws  can  be  said  to  exist  only  in  one  of 
two  ways :  either  as  the  actual  mode  of 
action  of  reality,  or  as  the  perception  and 
formulation  in  an  observing  mind  of  that 
mode  of  action.  And  these  difficulties  are 
both  sufficiently  serious. 

But,  from  our  present  point  of  view,  the 
great  difficulty  is,  that  trying  to  conceive 
God  as  either  creating  or  coming  to  the 
recognition  of  truth,  assumes,  as  Lotze  points 
out,  a  fragmentary  God,  a  God  for  whom 
truth  is  not  yet.  It  assumes  an  action  of  the 
will  of  God  apart  from  his  reason,  that  is, 
a  God  not  yet  completely  personal,  not  yet 
the  full  God  of  truth  and  character.  A  God 
for  whom  truth  and  duty  are  not  yet,  is  cer- 
tainly no  true  person.  Most,  if  not  all,  of 
our  metaphysical  puzzles  connected  with  the 
relation,  of  God  to  what  we  call  eternal 
truths,  seem  to  me  to  grow  out  of  this 
thought  of  an  essentially  fragmentary  God. 

We  are  driven,  consequently,  to  a  denial 
of  both  the  Scotist  and  Thomist  positions,  as 
ordinarily  conceived.  It  is  true  neither  that 
the  truth  is  true  and  the  good  is  good  be- 
cause God  wills  it,  nor  yet  that  God  wills 
the  true  because  it  is  true  and  the  good 
because  it  is  good.  Both  views  alike  assume 


214        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

the  possibility  of  a  fragmentary  God,  a  God 
for  whom  at  some  time  truth  and  goodness 
were  not  yet.  But  God  has  always  been  the 
completely  personal  God  of  truth  and  love, 
never  a  bare  will  and  never  a  bare  intellect. 
Hence,  neither  as  an  independent  object  to 
be  recognized,  nor  yet  as  the  external  prod- 
uct of  his  will,  can  we  think  of  the  realm 
of  eternal  truth  and  goodness.  We  must 
rather  say,  God  alone  is  the  eternal  being 
and  absolute  source  of  all,  always  complete 
in  the  perfection  of  his  personality;  and, 
therefore,  what  we  call  the  eternal  truths 
are  only  the  eternal  modes  of  God's  actual 
activity.  This  alone  seems  to  the  writer  to 
give  a  thorough-going  theistic  view,  free  from 
self-contradiction.1 

(2)  Eternal  Creation. — But,  further,  if  God 
is  to  be  thought  as  always  the  completely 
personal  God,  we  are  led,  also,  immediately 
to  the  doctrine  of  eternal  creation. 

If  God  has  had  always  a  completely  per- 
sonal life,  his  entire  being  must  have  been 
always  in  exercise.  Can  we  really  think  of 
such  a  God  as  simply  quiescent,  and  not  as 
always  active?  Is  not  his  activity  involved 
in  his  complete  personality?  The  thought 

1  Cf.  Lotze,  The  Microcosmus,  Vol.  II,  pp.  690  ff. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  215 

of  his  possible  quiescence  arises  probably  out 
of  an  unconscious,  but  nevertheless  unwar- 
ranted, transfer  to  God  of  our  finite  sepa- 
ration of  will  and  act.  But  God  is  here,  too, 
no  fragmentary  God;  he  has  always  been  the 
completely  personal  God,  always  acting. 

A  second  consideration  carries  us  to  the 
same  conclusion.  Theologians  have  felt  that 
they  have  made  a  distinct  step  in  advance 
in  tracing  creation  to  love  in  God,  as,  for 
example,  Principal  Fairbairn  does.  But  this 
gives  no  real  help  as  an  explanation  of 
creation  as  beginning  in  time ;  for  one  must  at 
once  ask,  Was  not  the  love  of  God  eternal, 
and  if  this  were  the  real  reason  leading  to 
creation,  must  not,  then,  creation  be  eternal? 

So  far  as  I  am  able  to  see,  there  is  noth- 
ing to  lose  and  much  to  gain  in  clearness 
and  satisfactoriness  of  thought  in  a  frank 
acceptance  of  the  doctrine  of  eternal  crea- 
tion. Not,  of  course,  in  the  sense  of  an 
eternal  dualism,  in  the  sense  of  the  thought 
of  an  eternity  of  matter  set  over  against  God, 
but  in  the  clear  sense  of  the  eternal  creative 
activity  of  God.  And  to  such  a  doctrine  of 
eternal  creation,  the  social  consciousness,  in 
its  emphasis  on  the  completely  personal, 
seems  to  me  to  lead. 


2l6        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

(3)  The  Unity  and  Unchangeableness  of 
God. — And,  once  more,  if  God  is  always 
the  completely  personal  God,  we  shall  con- 
ceive his  own  unity  not  as  monotonous  self- 
identity,  but  only  as  consistency  of  meaning. 
We  shall  not,  therefore,  transfer  to  God, 
pluming  ourselves  meanwhile  upon  a  highly 
philosophical  view,  the  mechanical  unchange- 
ableness  of  a  rock;  but  we  shall  be  rather 
concerned  with  the  consistency  of  his  char- 
acter and  the  unchangeableness  of  his  loving 
will,  which  would  be  the  very  reasons  for 
his  changing,  adapting  attitude  toward  his 
changing  children.  From  this  point  of  view, 
too,  the  sphere  of  law  and  the  sphere  of  the 
actual,  will  seem  to  us,  necessarily,  to  root 
in  the  sphere  of  the  ideal;  the  is  and  the 
must,  to  rest  in  the  ought;  though  we  may 
not  hope  to  trace  the  connections  in  detail. 
In  a  God,  then,  who  is  a  completely  har- 
monious person,  never  acting  in  fragmentary 
fashion,  whose  will  and  whose  reason  and 
whose  love  are  never  at  cross  purposes  — 
only  in  such  a  God  can  the  world  find  its 
adequate  and  unifying  source.  The  world 
itself  has  real  unity  only  in  so  far  as  it  is 
the  expression  of  the  consistency  of  meaning 
of  the  purpose  of  God  concerning  it. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  217 

And  this  same  thought  of  the  consistency 
of  the  meaning  of  the  purpose  of  God,  I 
have  elsewhere  argued,1  saves  us  from  the 
necessity  of  a  self-contradictory  conception  of 
the  miraculous  or  supernatural,  by  its  recog- 
nition of  the  dominant  spiritual  order.  It 
also  enables  us  to  see,  with  Professor  Nash,  if 
the  word  personal  is  given  sufficient  breadth, 
that  "the  true  supernatural  is  the  personal, 
and  wheresoever  the  personal  is  discovered, 
whether  in  the  life  of  conscience  or  the  life 
of  reason,  whether  in  Israel  or  Greece,  there 
the  supernatural  is  discovered.  Upon  this 
conception  of  the  supernatural  as  the  per- 
sonal, apologetics  must  found  the  claims  of 
Christianity.  The  divine  and  the  human 
personality  stand  within  '  Nature,'  that  is, 
within  the  total  of  being.  But  they  both, 
the  human  as  well  as  the  divine,  transcend 
the  scope  and  reach  of  visible  Nature."2 

(4)  The  Limitations  of  the  Conception  of 
Immanence. —  Indeed,  it  ought  to  be  clearly 
recognized  on  all  sides  by  those  who  believe 
in  religion  at  all,  that  we  cannot  so  exclu- 
sively emphasize  the  immanence  of  God,  as 
many  are  now  doing,  and  have  a  God  at 

1  See  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  Chapter  VI. 
2 Ethics  and  Revelation,  p.  270. 


2l8        THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

all,  beyond  the  finite  manifestations.  When 
the  matter  is  so  conceived,  there  is  no  real 
personal  God  with  whom  there  can  be  any 
personal  communion.  Religion,  thus,  in  any 
ordinary  sense  of  it,  is  by  this  process  made 
simply  impossible;  Positivism  is  the  only 
logical  result,  and  Frederic  Harrison  becomes 
the  one  sole,  clear-sighted  prophet  among  UST 
a  lone  voice  crying  in  the  wilderness.  Such 
an  outcome  is  possible  for  any,  because,  and 
in  so  far  as,  they  are  not  true  to  the  social 
consciousness  in  its  demand  for  the  com- 
pletely personal  God,  who,  in  Martineau's 
language,  is  a  genuinely  "free  spirit."1 

3.  Deepening  the  Thought  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God. — But  the  influence  of  the  social  con- 
sciousness in  its  deepening  sense  of  the  value 
and  sacredness  of  the  person,  of  obligation 
and  of  love,  not  only  tends  to  insist  upon 
the  completely  personal  in  the  conception  of 
God,  but  also  tends  to  deepen  our  thought 
of  the  Fatherhood  of  God. 

(i)  History  no  Mere  Natural  Process. —  No 
mere  on- going  of  an  unfeeling  Absolute, 
whatever  name  be  given  it,  will  ever  satisfy 
the  social  consciousness.  The  new  sense  of 
the  sorrow  and  ethical  meaning  of  the  his- 

1  See  the  fuller  statement  in  the  Reconstruction  in  Theology,  pp.  96-108. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  2IQ 

torical  process  demands,  in  the  first  place, 
that  history  shall  not  be  regarded  as  a  mere 
necessitated  development,  but  a  movement 
in  which  men  effectively  cooperate,  never 
more  consciously  and  clearly  than  to-day; 
and  secondly,  it  demands  a  God  who  cares, 
who  loves,  who  guides.  History  cannot  be 
a  mere  holocaust  to  God. 

(2)  God,  the  Great  Servant.  —  Rather,  as 
we  saw  in  the  fourth  chapter,  the  social  con- 
sciousness requires  a  God  whose  purpose  shall 
completely  support  its  own  purpose,  and  so 
requires  us,  with  Fairbairn,  to  put  Fatherhood 
before  Sovereignty,  not  Sovereignty  before 
Fatherhood,  and  requires  us  definitely  to 
conceive  God  after  Christ,  as  self-giving 
ministering  love.  It  is  one  of  the  anomalies 
of  Christian  history,  that  the  church  has  been 
so  slow  to  cast  off  a  pagan  conception  of 
God,  and  to  come  to  a  truly  Christian  view. 
We  can  hardly  take  in  Christ's  own  revela- 
tion of  God  without  some  sharing  in  his 
sympathy  for  men.  Some  experience  of  our 
own  is  needed  to  unlock  the  revelation. 
And,  so,  the  steady  deepening  of  the  social 
consciousness,  both  as  to  the  value  of  the 
person  and  as  to  the  sense  of  obligation,  has 
certainly  helped  us  to  see  that  if  God  is  to 


22O        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

be  highest,  he  must  be  love,  and  thus  the 
great  servant,  with  transcendent  obligations, 
entering  really  and  sympathetically  into  all 
our  life. 

(3)  No  Divine  Arbitrariness. — With  such  a 
conception  of  God,  every  trace  of  arbitrari- 
ness disappears.  Calvinism,  however  stren- 
uously insisted  upon,  means  a  far  different 
thing  for  any  man  who  really  feels  the  pres- 
sure of  the  modern  social  consciousness,  who 
has  come  to  some  real  sense  of  the  value 
and  sacredness  of  the  person,  that  is,  who 
really  sees  God  in  Christ.  The  great  truth 
of  Calvinism,  that  God  is  the  ultimate  source 
of  all,  was  perhaps  never  more  secure  than 
to-day;  but  that  God,  who  is  the  absolute 
and  ultimate  source  of  all,  is  the  fully  per- 
sonal God,  whose  will  is  never  divorced  from 
his  reason  and  love,  who  knows  no  such 
abstraction  as  a  bare  and  empty  omnipotence 
without  content  or  direction,  but  who  is  him- 
self always  living  love.  The  bane  of  much 
so-called  Calvinism  is  in  this  supposition  of 
a  fragmentary  God,  like  a  motion  without 
direction  or  rate  of  speed.  Arbitrary  decrees 
are  conceivable  only  from  such  a  fragmentary 
God,  not  yet  full  and  complete  in  his  reality 
and  personality. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE    PERSON  221 

(4)  The  Passibility  of  God. — It  would  seem, 
also,  that  any  vital  defense  of  the  Fatherhood 
of  God,  required  by  the  social  consciousness, 
involves  further  the  frank  admission  of  the 
passibility  of  God,  whether  it  has  the  look  of 
an  ancient  heresy  or  not.  We  must  unhesi- 
tatingly admit  that,  without  which  God  can 
be  no  real  God  to  us.  "Theology  has  no 
falser  idea  than  that  of  the  impassibility  of 
God.  If  he  is  capable  of  sorrow,  he  is  capa- 
ble of  suffering,  and  were  he  without  the 
capacity  for  either  he  would  be  without  any 
feeling  of  the  evil  of  sin  or  the  misery  of 
man.  The  very  truth  that  comes  by  Jesus 
Christ  may  be  said  to  be  summed  up  in  the 
passibility  of  God."1  With  the  growing  sen- 
sitiveness of  the  social  consciousness,  the 
problem  of  suffering  and  of  sin  presses  in- 
creasingly, and  itself  almost  compels  the  asser- 
tion of  the  passibility  of  God.  Nothing  less 
can  satisfy  our  hearts,  nor  indeed  allow  us  to 
keep  our  reverence  for  God. 

Certainly,  with  the  increasingly  clear  vi- 
sion, which  the  social  consciousness  is  giving 
us,  of  sympathetic,  unselfish,  definitely  self- 
sacrificing,  loving  leadership  even  among 
men,  we  shall  not  rest  satisfied  with  less  in 

1  Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  483. 


222       THEOLOGY    AND    THE    SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

God.  We  must  have  a  suffering,  seeking, 
loving  God;  because  our  Father,  suffering 
in  our  sin,  bearing  as  a  burden  the  sin  of 
each,  and  not  satisfied  while  one  child  turns 
away;  no  mere  on-looker,  but  in  all  our 
afflictions,  himself  afflicted.  The  cross  of 
Christ,  then,  is  only  an  honest  showing  of 
the  actual  facts  of  God's  seeking,  suffering 
love. 

4.  As  to  the  Doctrine  of  a  Social  Trinity. 
— One  inference  for  theology  widely  drawn 
from  the  social  consciousness,  it  ought  in 
fairness,  perhaps,  to  be  said,  seems  to  me 
unjustified, — the  doctrine  of  a  so-called  "So- 
cial Trinity."  One  must  question  the  constant 
cool  assumption  made  in  these  discussions  of 
a  social  Trinity,  that  this  view  is  the  only 
alternative  to  what  is  called  an  "abstract  sim- 
plicity." In  any  case,  one  would  suppose, 
we  must  have  in  God  all  the  richness  and 
complexity  of  a  complete  personal  life,  freed 
from  the  limitations  of  finite  personality. 
Something  of  the  much  that  that  involves 
we  have  been  trying  to  point  out.  Here 
certainly  is  no  "abstract  simplicity." 

Moreover,  the  conception  of  a  social 
Trinity,  so  far  as  the  writer  can  see,  carries 
us  inevitably  to  a  tritheism  of  the  most  un- 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  223 

mistakable  kind.  "Social"  involves  full  per- 
sonality. Nothing  requires  more  complete 
personality  than  love,  which  the  view  affirms 
to  exist  between  the  persons  of  the  immanent 
Trinity,  between  the  distinctions  in  the  very 
Godhead.  The  relations  of  Christ  to  God 
were,  of  course,  distinctly  and  definitely 
personal;  but  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
we  are  not  permitted,  on  any  careful  theo- 
logical view,  to  transfer  these  directly  to  the 
immanent  relations  of  the  Godhead. 

The  distinction  drawn  by  Dr.  W.  N. 
Clarke,1  between  the  doctrine  of  the  biblical 
Trinity  and  the  doctrine  of  the  Triunity,  I 
count  of  decided  value ;  but  after  one  has 
made  the  distinction,  one  may  doubt  the 
value  of  the  contribution  made  by  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Triunity.  The  really  immanent 
relations  of  the  Godhead  are  necessarily 
hidden  from  us,  and  are,  also,  so  far  as  the 
writer  can  see,  without  ethical  or  religious 
significance  for  us,  except  in  the  way  of 
possible  injury  through  substituting  some 
supposed  altogether  mysterious  and  incom- 
prehensibly sacred,  for  the  well-known  and 
truly  sacred  shown  in  the  ethical  relations  of 
common  life. 

1  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  pp.  161,  ff. 


224      THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  doctrine  of  the  Triunity  seems  to 
have  been  originally  intended  to  enable  the 
church  to  hold  the  divinity  of  Christ.  If 
we  now  get  at  that  and  hold  that  from  quite 
a  different  point  of  view,  the  older  way  be- 
comes less  essential.  We  must,  indeed,  keep 
the  ancient  treasure,  but  we  need  not  keep 
it  in  the  same  ancient  chest.  None  of  us — 
not  the  most  orthodox  —  really  find  the 
reasons  for  holding  the  divinity  of  Christ  in 
the  doctrine  of  the  Triunity.  It  is  interest- 
ing to  observe  how  widely  separated  from 
the  doctrine  of  the  Triunity  are  the  consid- 
erations which  really  move  men  to  faith  in 
the  divinity  of  Christ.  That  doctrine  is,  at 
the  very  most,  only  our  philosophical  supple- 
ment intended  to  bring  that,  which  on  other 
grounds  we  have  come  to  believe,  into  unity 
with  our  thought  of  God. 

But,  at  least,  we  must  so  conceive  the 
divinity  of  Christ,  as  not  to  get  two  or 
three  Gods.  And  a  "Social  Trinity"  does 
not  seem  to  me  to  avoid  that,  except  in 
terms.  However,  therefore,  we  are  to  solve 
our  problem,  we  are  not  to  take  that  way 
out. 

What  Dr.  Clarke  calls  the  biblical  doc- 
trine of  the  Trinity,  on  the  other  hand, 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  225 

seems  to  me  to  contain  the  very  heart  of 
Christianity,  whatever  philosophical  theory 
we  put  beneath  it;  and  it  became,  there- 
fore, as  expressed  in  the  baptismal  and  bene- 
diction formulas,  the  great  daily  confession 
of  the  church,  since  it  strongly  expresses 
that  of  which  we  have  been  speaking, —  the 
living  love  of  God,  a  life  of  absolutely  self- 
giving  love,  of  eternal  ministry. 

The  biblical  Trinity  is,  in  truth,  what  it  has 
sometimes  been  called,  the  trinity  of  redemp- 
tion; and,  for  me,  directly  emphasizes  the 
great  facts  of  redemption.  Here  there  are 
three  great  facts:  First,  the  Fatherhood  of 
God,  that  God  is  in  his  very  being  Father, 
Love,  self-manifesting  as  light,  self-giving  as 
life,  self-communicating,  pouring  himself  out 
into  the  life  of  his  children,  wishing  to  share 
his  highest  life  with  them,  every  one.  Second, 
the  concrete,  unmistakable  revelation  of  the 
Father  in  Christ,  revealed  in  full  ethical 
perfection,  as  an  actual  fact  to  be  known 
and  experienced;  no  longer  an  unknown, 
hidden,  or  only  partially  and  imperfectly  re- 
vealed God,  but  a  real,  living  God  of  char- 
acter, counting  as  a  real,  appreciable,  but  fully 
spiritual  fact  in  the  real  world.  And,  third, 
the  Father  revealing  himself  by  his  Spirit  in 


226        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

every  individual  heart  that  opens  itself  to 
him,  in  a  constant,  intimate,  divine  associa- 
tion, which  yet  is  never  obtrusive,  but  rever- 
ent of  the  man's  personality,  making  possible 
to  every  man  the  ideal  conditions  of  the 
richest  life. 

What  metaphysical  theory  we  put  under 
that  confession  of  our  full  Christian  faith,  does 
not  seem  to  me  to  be  of  prime  importance. 
Men  may  count  it  of  great  importance ;  but 
it  can  hardly  be  of  first  importance,  since,  at 
the  very  most,  only  the  beginnings  of  such 
a  theory  can  be  found  in  the  great  New 
Testament  confession  of  Christ. 

5.  Preeminent  Reverence  for  Personality, 
Characterizing  all  Goa"s  Relations  with  Men. — 
But  the  very  heart  of  the  conviction,  on  the 
part  of  the  social  consciousness,  of  the  value 
and  sacredness  of  the  person,  is  its  reverence 
for  personality;  and  this  thought  has  much 
significance  for  theology,  for,  if  this  judg- 
ment of  the  social  consciousness  is  justified, 
it  must  be  regarded  as  preeminently  char- 
acterizing God  in  all  his  relations  with  men. 

(i)  Reflected  in  Christ. — When,  in  the  first 
place,  we  turn  to  Christ  as  the  supreme 
revelation  of  God,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that 
this  reverence  for  the  personal  marks  every 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  227 

step  he  takes.  It  begins,  of  course,  in  the 
priceless  value  which  Christ  gives  to  each 
person,  as  a  child  of  the  living,  loving  Father. 
And  it  seems  to  determine  his  whole  method 
with  his  generation  and  with  his  disciples. 
It  is  shown  in  the  initial  battle  in  the  temp- 
tations, as  to  the  form  his  work  was  to  take, 
and  as  to  the  means  to  be  employed.  There 
was  here,  as  we  have  seen,  from  the  start  an 
absolute  subordination  of  all  unspiritual  and 
unethical  methods  in  the  building  of  the  king- 
dom. There  is  to  be  no  over-riding  of  the  free 
personality  anywhere.  He  faced  successively 
the  temptations  to  place  his  dependence  on 
the  mere  meeting  of  men's  material  needs — 
the  kingdom  by  bread ;  the  temptation  to 
place  his  dependence  on  that  which  appealed 
most  strongly  to  the  oriental  mind  —  the  use 
of  wonder-working  power  —  the  kingdom  by 
marvel  or  ecstasy;  the  temptation  to  place 
his  dependence  on  force  —  the  kingdom  by 
force.  But  Christ  sees  clearly  that  God  is 
no  mere  supplier  of  bread;  that  God  is  no 
mere  wonder-worker,  no  mere  giver  of  won- 
derful experiences;  and  that  God  is  not  a 
tyrant  to  conquer  by  force.  Everywhere, 
therefore,  he  sets  aside  whatever  may  over- 
ride the  free  personality.  He  would  replace 


228        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

all  the  attractive  and  seemingly  rapid  meth- 
ods of  the  kingdom  by  bread,  the  kingdom 
by  marvel,  and  the  kingdom  by  force,  with 
the  slow  and  tedious  and  costly  but  reverent 
method  of  the  spiritual  kingdom  by  spiritual 
means,  the  kingdom  of  God  by  God's  way 
— of  a  trust  freely  won,  a  humility  sponta- 
neously arising,  a  love  gladly  given.  He 
can  take  no  pleasure  in  any  kingdom  but 
one  of  free  persons. 

In  the  same  way,  in  his  dealings  with  the 
inner  circle  of  his  disciples,  there  seems  to 
have  been  the  most  scrupulous  regard  for 
their  own  needed  initiative.  He  apparently 
makes  no  clear  announcement  of  himself  as 
Messiah  even  to  the  disciples  until  late  in 
his  public  ministry,  and,  then,  only  after  they 
have  been  brought,  through  weeks,  if  not 
months,  of  unusually  close  personal  contact 
and  impression  of  his  spirit,  into  their  own 
confession  of  him.  He  steadily  abjures,  that 
is,  all  dogmatism  about  himself,  and  leads 
them  along  by  a  purely  spiritual  method  to 
a  confession  of  him,  that  may  be  truly  their 
own.  There  is  no  piling  up  of  proof-texts 
from  the  Old  Testament,  to  show  that  he 
is  the  Messiah.  He  seems  never  to  have 
attempted  any  proof  with  his  disciples.  In- 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  22Q 

deed,  he  seems  purposely  to  have  chosen  the 
rather  ambiguous  title,  "the  Son  of  Man," 
that  men  might  be  left  free  to  come  by 
moral  choice  to  him. 

The  surpassingly  significant  fact,  that 
Christ's  chief  work  in  the  establishment  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  as  seems  to  me  beyond 
doubt,  was  his  personal  association  with  a 
few  men;  that,  probably,  a  full  third,  perhaps 
more,  of  his  very  brief  so-called  public 
ministry  was  taken  up  with  a  period  of  defi- 
nitely sought  comparative  retirement  with  the 
inner  circle  of  the  disciples — all  this  points  to 
the  same  recognition  of  the  fundamental  im- 
portance in  Christ's  eyes  of  such  a  reverence 
for  the  person.  The  kingdom  of  God  can 
be  founded  only  by  the  full  winning  of  free 
persons  into  his  discipleship.  The  kingdom 
is  first  and  last  a  kingdom  of  free  persons, 
in  Dr.  Mulford's  language,  always  a  "Re- 
public of  God."  Professor  Peabody's  empha- 
sis on  the  essential  importance  of  Christ's 
individualism,  that  "Jesus  approaches  life 
from  within,  through  the  inspiration  of  the 
individual,"1  it  need  not  be  said,  goes  upon 
the  same  assumption  of  Christ's  reverence 
for  the  person. 

1 Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question,  p.  101. 


23O       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

In  his  really  public  ministry  the  same 
spirit  appears ;  for  Jesus  seems  to  me  here 
constantly  to  be  standing  with  a  kind  of  moral 
shudder  between  the  spirit  of  contempt  in 
the  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  and  the  out- 
raged personality  of  the  common  people, 
even  of  the  publicans  and  sinners.  He  feels 
the  contempt  even  for  these  least,  as  a  blow 
in  his  own  face. 

That  glimpse  which  the  Revelation  gives 
us  of  Christ  standing  and  knocking  at  the 
heart's  closed  door,  is  a  true  picture  forever- 
more  not  only  of  the  attitude  of  Christ's 
earthly  life,  but  of  God's  eternal  relation  to 
us.  Men  may  over-ride  and  outrage  us,  and 
even  think  that  they  show  the  more  love 
thereby;  God,  never.  This  principle,  then, 
we  may  take  as  absolutely  crucial,  in  our 
judgment  of  God's  dealings  with  us. 

(2)  In  Creation. — It  is  fundamental  even 
in  creation.  The  very  fact  of  the  creation 
of  persons  implies  it.  Such  a  creation  can 
have  no  significance,  if,  in  the  language 
already  quoted  from  Howison,  God's  "con- 
sciousness is  void  of  that  recognition  and 
reverence  of  the  personal  initiative  of  other 
minds  which  is  at  once  the  sign  and  the 
test  of  the  true  person." 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  231 

And  if  love  is,  for  a  moment,  to  be  thought 
of  as  the  motive  of  creation,  it  required  for 
any  satisfaction  of  it,  persons  who  could 
freely  respond  to  that  love. 

The  definite  bestowal  of  the  fateful  gift  of 
moral  freedom,  with  the  practical  certainty 
of  sin — the  creation  of  beings  who  could 
choose  against  him  —  shows  how  deeply 
planted  in  the  very  being  of  God  is  this 
principle  of  reverence  for  the  person. 

Here,  too,  the  impossibility  of  arbitrary 
divine  decrees  meets  us.  This  would  be 
treating  a  person  as  a  thing,  and  God  him- 
self may  not  do  that  and  remain  God.  If  a 
man  cannot  see  his  way  to  a  faith  both  in 
the  divine  foreknowledge  and  in  the  moral 
initiative  of  men,  therefore,  he  must  not 
hesitate  to  choose  even  the  divine  nescience 
of  the  free  acts  of  men,  rather  than  think  of 
God  as  compelling  men.  Our  whole  moral 
universe  tumbles  about  our  ears,  if  he  who 
is  the  source  of  all  is  not  in  earnest  with 
persons.  And  yet  there  is  much  theological 
thinking,  of  which  the  common  notions  of  a 
personal  reign  of  Christ  on  the  earth  may  be 
taken  as  an  example,  that  practically  looks 
to  a  kingdom  by  compulsion.  A  kingdom 
of  free  spirits  cannot  be  merely  decreed. 


232        THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

(3)  In  Providence. — And  this  same  prin- 
ciple of  reverence  for  personality  must  be 
felt  to  be  the  guiding  motive  and  key,  as 
well,  in  the  providence  and  government  of 
God.  God  keeps  his  hands  off.  He  must 
so  act  as  to  call  out,  not  to  suppress,  indi- 
vidual initiative. 

This  is,  perhaps,  the  deepest  reason  for  a 
sphere  of  law,  that  there  may  be  a  realm  in 
which  a  person  can  have  his  own  free  devel- 
opment, uninterfered  with  by  any  moral 
compulsion. 

If,  now,  this  sphere  of  law  is  to  be  any 
true  training  ground  for  character,  as  we  saw 
in  the  third  chapter,  results  must  not  be 
forthwith  set  aside,  the  mutual  influence  of 
men  must  hold  all  along  the  line. 

Even  in  the  case  of  great  evils,  God  does 
not  step  in  at  once  to  set  things  right. 
Character  is  an  exceedingly  costly  product. 
This  is  no  play-world,  either  as  to  mutual 
influence  or  as  to  freedom.  God  guards 
most  jealously  the  freedom  and  personality 
of  men.  He  never  forgets  that  character 
must  be  from  within.  He  will  not  accept, 
as  Christ  would  not,  a  faith  compelled  by 
"signs."  Hence,  too,  we  are  left  to  ask,  and 
much  is  left  to  depend  on  our  asking.  So, 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  233 

also,  God  does  not  remove  all  difficulties 
and  give  sight  in  place  of  faith.  He  seems 
even  careless,  often,  of  how  things  go;  for 
he  would  not  only  appeal  to  the  heroic  in 
us,  but  he  wishes  to  make  it  impossible  for 
us  to  confuse  prudence  and  virtue  in  our- 
selves or  others,  and  so  to  give  us  the 
opportunity  and  the  joy  of  a  real  moral 
victory,  of  knowing  that  we  have  made  a 
genuinely  unselfish  surrender  to  the  right. 
In  the  light  of  this  deep-lying  principle  of 
God's  sacred  reverence  for  the  person,  one 
learns  to  hush  his  former  complaints,  and 
with  full  heart  to  thank  God  that  he  lives 
in  a  world  where  righteousness  and  happi- 
ness do  not  always  seem  to  fall  together, 
and  where,  therefore,  he  can  "serve  God  for 
naught."  Oh,  let  us  know,  that  it  is  not 
that  God  does  not  care,  but  that  he  cares 
so  much  —  too  much  to  sacrifice  to  present 
comfort  the  character  of  the  child  he  loves 
—  too  much  to  shut  him  out  from  his  highest 
opportunity. 

(4)  In  Our  Personal  Religious  Life. —  And 
the  same  principle  holds  in  our  personal 
religious  life.  The  unobtrusiveness  of  God's 
relation  to  us,  of  which  we  often  complain, 
is  rather  to  be  taken  as  evidence  of  his 


234       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

sacred  respect  for  our  own  moral  initiative, 
and  proof  of  his  careful  adaptation  to  our 
moral  need.  Wherever  a  strong  personality 
is  in  relation  to  a  weaker,  the  stronger  must 
maintain  a  conscientious  self-restraint,  lest  he 
dominate  the  personality  of  the  other,  to  the 
other's  moral  injury  and  to  the  hindering  of 
his  individuality.  It  is  possible  for  a  boy  to 
be  injuriously  "tied*  to  his  mother's  apron- 
strings."  Much  more  is  it  necessary  that 
God's  relation  to  us  should  not  be  obtrusive. 
God  must  guard  our  freedom  and  our  indi- 
viduality. He  must  even  take  pains  to  hide 
his  hand,  as  a  strong,  influential,  but  wise 
friend  would  do.  As  we  go  higher,  our  life 
is  and  must  be  increasingly  one  of  faith, 
the  Father's  relation  less  and  less  obtrusive.1 
The  times  of  vision  are  given  to  make  us 
patient  in  our  progress  toward  the  goal. 
And  after  the  vision  comes  often  what  Ren- 
del  Harris  calls  "the  dark  night  of  faith, 
when  every  step  has  to  be  taken  in  absolute 
dependence  upon  God  and  assurance  that 
the  vision  was  truth  and  was  no  lie."2  We 
need  the  invisible  God  for  character. 

1  Cf.  Fairbairn,  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  pp. 

434,  435- 

2  Union  'with  God,  p.  109. 


THE    SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  235 

It  is  for  this  reason,  no  doubt,  that  God 
makes  so  rare  use  of  overwhelming  experi- 
ences in  the  religious  life.  He  would  be 
chosen  with  clear  and  rational  self-conscious- 
ness, and  so  he  rarely  overpowers.  And 
even  in  experiences  which  seem  most  over- 
powering, if  the  person  is  really  awake  to 
their  true  ethical  and  spiritual  import,  they 
will  probably  be  found  delicately  adapted  to 
call  out  the  individual's  own  response.  But 
for  most  of  us  such  experiences  prove  a  real 
temptation,  because  we  allow  the  passively 
emotional  to  absorb  our  attention,  and  so 
lose  the  ethical  and  spiritual  fruit.  Where 
these  marvelous  experiences  have  been  most 
marked,  and  have  plainly  given  real  help, 
they  seem  still,  usually,  to  have  been  needed 
because  of  some  false  conception  of  God 
and  the  spiritual  world  that  required  a  pow- 
erful corrective.  Here  they  seem  really  to 
have  been  granted,  as  probably  the  trans- 
figuration of  Christ  was  to  the  disciples,  as 
a  concession  to  men's  weakness,  God  con- 
senting reluctantly  to  use  for  the  time  a  lower 
line  of  appeal,  because  men  are  unable  to 
rise  to  the  higher  appeal. 

We  have  already  seen  the  danger  of  the 
neo-platonic  over -estimation  of  emotional 


236      THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

experience,  and  of  sudden  and  magical 
crises  in  religion ;  and  this  danger  is  espe- 
cially seen  in  much  that  is  said  concerning 
the  work  of  the  Holy  Spirit.  It  seems  as  if 
it  were  simply  true,  for  many  earnest  and 
sincere  Christians,  that  the  superstitions,  which 
they  had  conscientiously  put  aside  elsewhere 
in  religion,  all  came  back  in  their  thought  of 
the  work  of  the  Spirit.  Here  their  relation  to 
God  has  ceased  to  be  thought  of  as  a  personal 
or  moral  or  truly  spiritual  one ;  and  they  are 
looking  more  or  less  definitely  for  bodily 
thrills,  for  marked  and  overwhelming  emo- 
tional experiences,  or  for  sudden  transforma- 
tions— hardly  to  be  called  transformations  of 
character — in  the  passive  half-magical  removal 
of  temptations  altogether.  That  is,  they  are 
looking  for  moral  and  spiritual  results  from 
unmoral  and  unspiritual  processes.  The 
exact  point  is  this :  Doubtless  we  are  not 
narrowly  to  limit  what  the  personal  influence 
of  the  personal  Spirit  of  God  may  do  in 
transforming  human  life  —  the  possibilities 
probably  far  transcend  what  we  think — but 
we  are  clearly  to  see  that  the  relation  is  per- 
sonal, that  the  influence  is  spiritual  and  under 
strictly  ethical  conditions,  if  we  are  to  escape 
from  simply  pagan  superstition.  Let  us  see 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  237 

that,  if  God  is  a  Personal  Spirit  and  not  an 
impersonal  substance,  then,  as  Herrmann 
says,  he  "communes  with  us  through  mani- 
festations of  his  inner  life,  and  when  he  con- 
sciously and  purposely  makes  us  feel  what 
his  mind  is,  then  we  feel  himself."1 

And,  then,  let  us  add,  as  has  been  already 
earlier  said,  that  the  deepening  life  in  the 
Spirit  becomes  plainly  a  deepening  personal 
friendship  and  communion  with  God,  with 
laws — those  of  a  growing  friendship  —  that 
we  may  study  and  know  and  obey;  and 
among  these  laws,  none  is  of  more  central 
importance  than  this  of  the  reverence  for 
the  person. 

(5)  In  the  Judgment. — And  when  we  turn 
to  God's  relation  to  us  in  the  judgment,  we 
can  be  sure,  I  think,  of  a  further  application 
of  this  principle,  contrary  to  common  teach- 
ing and  expectation.  We  have  no  reason  to 
look  forward  to  a  time  when  the  secrets  of 
all,  or  of  any,  hearts  shall  be  laid  bare  to  all. 
In  so  doing,  God  would  violate,  it  seems  to 
me,  the  principle  of  his  entire  dealing  with 
men,  and  give  the  lie  to  his  own  revelation 
in  Christ  and  in  history.  For  myself,  Dr. 
Clarke's  words  carry  immediate  conviction: 

lThe  Communion  of  the  Christian  with  God,  p.  143. 


238       THEOLOGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

"No  man  needs  to  know  the  secrets  of  his 
neighbor,  and  be  able  to  trace  the  justice 
of  God  through  his  neighbor's  life,  and  no 
man  who  respects  the  sacredness  of  indi- 
viduality will  desire  it.  Neither  revelation 
of  his  own  secrets  nor  knowledge  of  another's 
seems  a  good  thing  to  a  self-respecting  soul."1 
Even  the  judgment  itself  proceeds,  no 
doubt,  in  clear  recognition  of  the  free  per- 
sonality. We  are  "judged  by  the  law  of 
liberty."  And  we  really  choose  our  own 
destiny,  as  Phillips  Brooks  suggests  in  one 
of  his  most  striking  paragraphs.  "By  this 
law  we  shall  be  judged.  How  simple  and 
sublime  it  makes  the  judgment  day!  We 
stand  before  the  great  white  throne  and 
wait  our  verdict.  We  watch  the  closed  lips 
of  the  Eternal  Judge,  and  our  hearts  stand 
still  until  those  lips  shall  open  and  pronounce 
our  fate,  heaven  or  hell.  The  lips  do  not 
open.  The  Judge  just  lifts  his  hand  and 
raises  from  each  soul  before  him  every  law 
of  constraint  whose  pressure  has  been  its 
education.  He  lifts  the  laws  of  constraint, 
and  their  results  are  manifest.  The  real  in- 
trinsic nature  of  each  soul  leaps  to  the  sur- 
face. Each  soul's  law  of  liberty  becomes 

lAn  Outline  of  Christian  Theology,  p.  464. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  239 

supreme.  And  each  soul,  without  one  word 
of  commendation  or  approval,  by  its  own 
inner  tendency,  seeks  its  own  place. 
The  freeing  of  souls  is  the  judging  of  souls. 
A  liberated  nature  dictates  its  own  destiny. 
Could  there  be  a  more  solemn  judgment 
seat?  Is  it  not  a  fearful  thing  to  be  judged 
by  the  law  of  liberty?"1 

And  we  may  be  most  certain,  that,  in  any 
judgment  by  God,  there  can  be  no  thought 
of  "human  waste."  The  man  must  remain 
for  God,  to  the  end,  a  child  of  God,  a  person 
of  sacredness  and  value,  to  be  dealt  with 
always  as  capable  of  character.  And  it  is 
along  just  this  line  that,  independently  of 
exegetical  grounds,  it  seems  to  me,  we  are 
led  to  a  decisive  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of 
annihilation.  And  I  know  no  more  convinc- 
ing putting  of  the  matter  than  this  brief  but 
comprehensive  statement  of  Fairbairn:  "If 
there  is  any  truth  in  the  Fatherhood,  would 
not  annihilation  be  even  more  a  punishment 
of  God  than  of  man?  The  annihilated  crea- 
ture would  indeed  be  gone  forever — good 
and  evil,  shame  and  misery,  penalty  and  pain, 
would  for  him  all  be  ended  with  his  being; 
but  it  would  not  be  so  with  God  —  out  of 

1  The  Candle  of  the  Lord  and  Other  Sermons,  p.  197. 


240       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

his  memory  the  name  of  the  man  could 
never  perish,  and  it  would  be,  as  it  were, 
the  eternal  symbol  of  a  soul  he  had  made 
only  to  find  that  with  it  he  could  do  nothing 
better  than  destroy  it."1 

(6)  In  the  Future  Life. —  Doubtless  our 
difficulties  are  not  at  an  end  even  so ;  but,  at 
least,  our  conception  of  God  is  saved  from 
self-contradiction ;  and  the  Father  is  seen  as 
suffering  in  the  sin  of  the  son,  and  perpetu- 
ally desiring  and  seeking  his  return,  never 
satisfied  so  long  as  any  child  of  his  still 
refuses  his  place  in  the  Father's  love.  This 
deep-going  principle  of  reverence  for  per- 
sonality, with  which  we  are  dealing,  is  the 
finest  flower  of  human  ethical  development, 
and  seems  completely  to  shut  out  the  possi- 
bility of  compulsion  by  God  at  any  time  in 
the  future  life.  A  person  will  never  be 
treated  as  a  thing.  The  soul  that  turns  to 
God  must  be  won  voluntarily. 

And  if,  then,  the  abstract  possibility  of  end- 
less resistance  to  God  by  men  cannot  be  de- 
nied ;  so  neither  can  the  possibility — perhaps 
one  might  even  say,  the  practical  probability- 
be  denied  that  God,  in  his  infinite  love  and 
patience  and  wisdom,  may  finally  win  them  all 

1  The  Place  of  Christ  in  Modern  Theology,  p.  467. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE    PERSON  24! 

out  of  their  resistance.  And  the  eternal  hope 
is  at  least  open;  but  it  is  open,  it  should  be 
noted,  only  upon  the  fulfilment  by  men  of 
precisely  those  moral  conditions  which  hold 
now  in  the  earthly  life,  and  which  ought  now 
to  be  obeyed.  There  will  never  be  an  easier 
way  to  God.  It  is  shallow  thinking  that  sup- 
poses that,  if  there  be  any  possibility  of  turn- 
ing to  God  in  the  future  life,  it  is  of  small 
moment  that  one  should  now  put  himself 
where  he  ought  to  be.  The  full  results  of 
all  our  evil  sowing,  we  must  receive.  The 
utmost  that  on  any  rational  theory,  then, 
can  be  held  out  to  men,  is  the  hope  that, 
facing  a  greater  heritage  of  evil  than  now 
they  face,  they  might  return  to  God  under 
the  same  condition  of  absolute  moral  sur- 
render, which  now  holds,  and  the  fulfilment 
of  which  is  now  far  more  easily  possible  to 
them. 

And  it  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  that, 
even  if  the  principle  of  reverence  for  person- 
ality be  much  less  far-reaching  than  is  here 
affirmed,  the  annihilation  of  a  soul  by  God 
could  seem  justified  only  upon  the  assumption 
that  God  foresaw  the  entire  future,  and  knew 
that  the  soul  would  never  turn  to  righteous- 
ness and  God.  But  if  the  doctrine  of  annihila- 


242        THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL    CONSCIOUSNESS 

tion  is  to  be  justified  on  that  ground,  it  is  to 
be  observed,  that  the  same  foreknowledge 
would  have  enabled  God  to  know  before 
creation  all' the  finally  incorrigible,  if  there 
were  to  be  any  such,  and  so  he  need  not 
have  called  these  into  being  at  all.  A  goal, 
therefore,  as  great  if  not  far  greater,  than 
that  offered  by  the  annihilation  theory  would 
be,  thus,  attainable  simply  upon  the  same 
assumption  that  must  rationally  be  made  by 
that  theory,  and,  at  the  same  time,  the  great 
objection  to  that  theory — its  violation  of  per- 
sonality—  would  be  avoided. 

It  seems  probable  that  this  very  principle 
of  reverence  for  personality  contains  the  chief 
reason  why  more  has  not  been  revealed  to 
us  concerning  the  future  life.  Christianity 
is  very  far  from  satisfying  our  curiosity  here. 
It  gives  little  more  than  the  absolutely  needed 
assurance  of  the  fact  and  worth  of  the  life 
beyond.  Details  are  either  quite  lacking,  or 
given  only  in  broadest  symbols.  This  reti- 
cent silence  of  revelation  seems  needed  if 
our  individual  initiative  is  not  to  be  hin- 
dered, either  by  excess  of  motive  on  the  one 
hand,  or  by  the  depression  of  an  unappreci- 
ated ideal  on  the  other  hand. 

On  the  one  hand,  that  is,  so  far  as  we  could 


THE     SACREDNESS     OF    THE     PERSON  243 

understand  a  detailed  revelation  of  the  future 
life,  to  set  it  forth  with  the  realism  of  the  pres- 
ent life  would  be  to  interfere  with  that  unob- 
trusive relation  of  God  to  us,  which  we  have 
seen  to  be  so  necessary  to  our  highest  moral 
training.  We  need,  in  this  time  of  our  train- 
ing, a  certain  obscurity  of  spiritual  truth ;  we 
need  to  walk  by  faith,  not  by  sight.  To  be 
able  so  obviously  to  weigh  the  eternal  realities 
against  the  temporal,  would  hinder  rather 
than  help  our  growth  in  loyal,  unselfish 
character. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  a  complete  and  in- 
dubitable revelation  of  the  future  life  were 
given  us,  no  doubt  there  would  be  much 
that  could  make  but  small  appeal  to  us,  and 
might  even  prove  positively  depressing,  be- 
cause we  have  not  yet  the  experience  which 
would  interpret  to  us  its  meaning  and  open 
to  us  its  joy.  Our  earthly  life  may  fur- 
nish us  an  analogy.  The  joy  of  a  grown 
man  is  often  preeminently  in  his  work,  but 
he  would  find  it  difficult  to  explain  to  a 
child  the  source  of  his  joy.  And  if  the 
child  were  told  that  there  would  come  a 
time  in  a  few  years  when  his  chief  joy  would 
be  found  in  work,  the  prospect  would  prob- 
ably not  seem  to  him  inviting.  The  wisest 


244        THEOLpGY    AND     THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

of  us  may  be  as  little  prepared  to  enter  in 
detail  into  the  meaning  of  the  future  life. 

We  may  be  content  to  know  that  the 
future  life  is,  and  is  of  value  beyond  that 
which  we  can  now  understand ;  and  we  may 
be  assured  that  at  least  what  we  have  already 
seen  to  be  the  ideal  conditions  of  the  richest 
life,1  as  now  we  understand  life,  will  be  fully 
met  in  the  future  life.  We  can  hardly  doubt, 
therefore,  that  the  two  great  centers  of  the 
life  beyond  must  be  association  and  work ; 
though  we  may  not  know  the  precise  forms 
that  these  will  take,  nor  how  greatly  both 
may  deepen  beyond  our  present  conception. 
Steadily  deepening  personal  relations,  rooted 
in  the  one  absolutely  satisfying  relation  to 
God  in  Christ,  there  must  be ;  and  work,  in 
which  one  may  lose  himself  with  joy,  because 
it  is  God's  work.  This,  at  least,  the  future 
life  will  contain.  We  can  hardly  go  farther 
with  assurance. 

But  perhaps  even  this  may  suggest,  that 
men  may  vary  much  in  the  proportionate 
emphasis  laid  upon  these  two  great  sources 
of  life,  and  still  alike  come  into  a  genuine 
and  rewarding  relation  to  God.  That  God 
has  counted  individuality  among  men  to  be 

1  See  above,    pp.  68  ff. 


THE     SACREDNESS    OF    THE     PERSON  245 

of  prime  significance,  the  facts  of  creation 
hardly  allow  us  to  doubt.  Possibly  it  is  only 
another  application  of  this  same  principle  of 
reverence  for  the  person,  in  the  recognition 
of  that  individuality  which  has  its  great  joy 
in  work,  which  is  to  be  found  in  what  Pro- 
fessor George  F.  Genung  suggestively  calls 
"an  apocalypse  of  Kipling."  In  Kipling's 
poem  to  Wolcott  Balestier,  Professor  Genung 
sees  "the  discovery  of  a  religion,  or  assignable 
and  eternally  rewardable  relation  to  God,  in 
those  whose  inner  life  is  not  introspective  or 
self-expressive."  Their  spiritual  life  "serves 
God  with  the  joy  which  comes  of  following 
and  satisfying,  in  the  sphere  of  his  plans,  the 
eager  bent  of  a  conquering  will."  "It  is  the 
religion  of  work  and  of  daring."  And  "it 
is  only  in  the  open  vision  of  an  eternal  world 
that  their  secular  ardor,  which  was  uncon- 
sciously serving  God  all  along,  begins  to 
come  to  the  perception  of  a  transcendent 
master  and  to  be  transformed  into  an  ado- 
ration, an  obedience  and  loyalty,  a  '  will  to 
serve  or  to  be  still  as  fitteth  our  Father's 
praise." 

It  is  quite  possible  that  through  our  very 
failure  to  enter  into  God's  own  deep  rever- 
ence for  the  person,  in  the  recognition  of 


246       THEOLOGY    AND    THE     SOCIAL     CONSCIOUSNESS 

man's  divinely  given  individuality,  as  well  as 
through  failure  to  recognize  the  essential 
like-mindedness  of  men,  we  have  been  shut- 
ting the  door  of  hope,  where  God  has  not 
shut  it,  and  have  limited  beyond  warrant  the 
divine  mercy.  Even  in  the  life  of  heaven 
men  cannot  be  all  alike.  "Who  art  thou 
that  judgest  the  servant  of  another?  to  his 
own  lord  he  standeth  or  falleth.  Yea,  he 
shall  be  made  to  stand ;  for  the  Lord  hath 
power  to  make  him  stand."1 

1  Romans  14:4. 


*f\BRAR7 
^   OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


INDEX 


Abbott,  Lyman,  reference  to,  13*. 

American  Journal  of  Theology,  fhe,  refer- 
ence to,  86. 

Analogy  of  Organism.     See  Organism. 

Annihilation,  doctrine  of,  why  rejected. 
239  ff. 

Arbitrariness,  excluded  in  God,  210  ff. 

Aristotle,  quoted,  26;  his  position  aban- 
doned by  mysticism,  56. 

Association,  personal,  in  redemption,  149 
ff;  in  personal  relation  to  God,  159  ff;  in 
confessions  of  faith,  167  ff. 

Assumption  of  the  book,  3. 

Atonement,  in  the  light  of  social  conscious- 
ness, 147  ff,  150  ff;  the  cost  of,  150;  sub- 
stitution and  propitiation  in,  150  ff  ; 
analogy  of  father  and"  child  in,  154  ff; 
blood  covenant  applied  to,  157. 

Baldwin,  J.  M.,  reference  to,  12. 

Biblical  Trinity,  224,  225. 

Blood  covenant,  as  applied  to  doctrine  of 
atonement,  157. 

Bohme,  Jacob,  referred  to,  71. 

Bowne,  B.  P.,  on  causality  and  purpose, 
43;  on  freedom,  182,  183. 

Bradley,  F.  H.,  on  the  religious  feeling  in 
philosophy,  129. 

Brooks,  Phillips,  reference  to,  28,  146;  on 
the  intellectual  life  of  Jesus,  81;  on  the 
emotional  life  of  Jesus,  84;  on  the  uni- 
versal interest  of  Jesus,  124;  on  the  like- 
ness of  men,  126;  on  judgment  according 
to  the  law  of  liberty,  238. 

Bruce's  fhe  Kingdom  of  God,  reference  to, 
52- 

Bushnell,  H.,  on  impenitence  of  Jesus, 
193- 


Calvinism,  220. 

Causality  and  purpose,  42,  43. 

Christ.     See  Jesus. 

Christian,  the  historically,  emphasized  by 
the  social  consciousness,  102  ff. 

Christianity,  as  contributing  to  sense  of 
mutual  influences,  13;  sometimes  uncon- 
scious, 130. 

Church,  the,  importance  of  the  doctrine  of, 
177  ff. 

Clarke,  W.  N..  referred  to,  116, 224;  quoted, 
132,  13?,  152;  on  propitiation,  151;  on 
doctrine  of  Trinity  and  Triunity,  223; 
on  revelation  of  inner  life  at  judgment, 
237- 

Common  qualities  and  interests,  most  valu- 
able, 177  ff. 

Confessions  of  faith,  Christian  fellowship  in, 
167  ff;  uniformity  in,  impossible,  169  ff 
and  undesirable,  171  ff. 

Corinthians,  first,  twelfth  chapter  of,  as 
expression  of  analogy  of  organism,  23; 
against  false  mysticism,  60-61,  83. 

Cornill,  reference  to,  64. 

Creation,  eternal,  214  ff;  reverence  for  per- 
son in,  230  ff. 

Creed,  Christian  fellowship  in,  167  ff;  uni- 
formity in,  impossible,  169  ff;  and  unde- 
sirable, 171  ff. 

Denison,  J.  H.,  referred  to,  197. 

Devotional  literature,  difficulty  in,  84  ; 
referred  to,  141. 

Dewey,  John,  referred  to,  12. 

Drummond,  H.,  reference  to.  21;  on  sin, 
140. 

Du  Bois,  Patterson,  on  true  spirit  of  father- 
hood, no. 


248 


INDEX 


Edwards,  Jonathan,  referred  to,  22. 

Election,  in  Paul,  116;  a  choice  for  ser- 
vice, 116. 

Emotion,  extreme  emphasis  on,  a  danger  in 
mysticism,  71;  cf.  235  ff. 

Eternal  creation,  214  ff. 

"Eternal  truths,"  God's  relation  to,  212  ff. 

Ethical,  the,  in  religion,  86  ff;  proofs  that 
religion  must  be,  89  ff. 

Ethicizing  of  religion,  89  ff;  involved  in 
relation  to  Christ,  89;  the  divine  will  in 
ethical  command,  90;  involved  in  nature 
of  God's  gifts,  91 ;  communion  with  God 
through  harmony  with  his  will,  92;  the 
vision  of  God  for  the  pure  in  heart,  92; 
sharing  the  life  of  God,  9?  ;  Christ,  as 
satisfying  our  claims  on  life,  94;  attrac- 
tion to  Christ,  ethically  conditioned,  96; 
the  moral  law,  a  revelation  of  the  love  of 
God,  98. 

Ethics  and  religion,  87,  89  ff. 

Everett,  C.  C.,  criticism  of  Nietzsche,  120. 

Expository  Times,  The,  reference  to,  64. 

Fairbairn,  A.  M.,  his  The  Place  of  Christ  in 
Modern  Theology,  mentioned,  no;  on  the 
Christian  consciousness,  112  ;  referred 
to,  119,  196,  215,  234;  on  sense  of  sin, 
14?;  on  Christ  as  transcendent,  189;  on 
passibility  of  God,  221;  on  annihilation, 
*39. 

Faith,  necessity  of,  in  life,  43,  44. 

Faith  in  men,  increased  by  sense  of  like- 
ness, 128. 

Father  and  child,  the  analogy  of,  applied 
to  redemption,  154  ff. 

Favorites,  none  with  God,  116  ff. 

Fellowship,  Christian,  help  of,  in  coming 
into  kingdom,  159  ff;  within  the  king- 
dom, 162  ff;  in  intercessory  prayer,  164 
ff;  in  confessions  of  faith,  167  ff. 

Fiske,  John,  reference  to,  21. 

Freedom,  in  man,  iSiff;  Bowne  on,  182, 
183;  references  on,  182. 

Fremantle,  W.  H.,  reference  to,  141. 

Friendship,  laws  of,  as  holding  in  religion, 
67- 

Future  life,  moral  reality  of,  132  ff;  rever- 
ence for  person  in,  240  ff. 


Galatians,  Epistle  to,  referred  to,  83. 

Genung,  G.  F.,  on  "an  apocalypse  of  Kip- 
ling," 245- 

Giddings,  F.  H.,  reference  to,  9,  10,  19,  20, 
62,  117;  on  the  "social  mind,"  138. 

God.  immanence  of,  as  related  to  social  con- 
sciousness, 40  ff;  his  will,  ethical  basis 
of  social  consciousness,  44  ff;  sharing  in 
our  life,  48;  will  of,  felt  in  ethical  com- 
mand, 90;  his  gifts  require  ethical  atti- 
tude to  receive  them,  91,  92;  our  sharing 
his  life,  93;  we  cannot  do  his  will  in 
general,  100;  a  thoroughly  personal  con- 
ception of,  needed,  207  ff;  guarding  the 
conception  of,  208  ff,  211;  suprapersonal 
in,  209;  Nash  on  doctrine  of  personality 
of,  210;  always  completely  personal,  212 
ff;  relation  to  eternal  truths,  212  ff;  as 
eternally  creating,  214  ff;  unity  and  un- 
changeableness  of,  216  ff;  limiting  con- 
ception of  immanence  of,  217  ff  ;  deepen- 
ing thought  of  Fatherhood  of,  218  ff;  as 
the  great  servant,  219;  no  arbitrariness 
in,  220;  passibility  of  God,  221;  trinity 
in,  222  ff. 

Grahame,  Kenneth,  on  love,  123;  referred 
to,  124. 

Harnack,  A.,  on  Christ,  200. 

Harris,  J.  R.,  quoted,  234. 

Hegel,  on  greatest  in  art,  119. 

Heredity,  not  to  be  over-emphasized,  37; 
James,  on,  37,  38. 

Herrmann,  W.,  referred  to,  22,  70,  173  ;  his 
definition  of  mysticism,  56,  57;  on  pan- 
theistic tendency  in  mysticism,  58,  74; 
on  our  satisfaction  in  Christ,  94;  on  the 
help  of  the  fellowship  of  the  church,  161 ; 
on  Christ's  rising  to  his  ideals,  194;  on 
Christ's  calling  out  absolute  trust,  199; 
on  personal  relation  to  God,  237. 

Historical,  the,  under-estimated  by  mysti- 
cism, 72. 

Historical  justification  needed  by  social 
consciousness,  59  ff,  102  ff. 

Historically,  the,  Christian,  emphasized  by 
the  social  consciousness,  102  ff. 

History,  no  mere  natural  process,  218  ff; 
God  in,  vii,  219. 


INDEX 


249 


Holy  Spirit,  doctrine  of,  often  made  super- 
stitious, 236. 

Honesty  of  the  world,  double  meaning  of,  80. 

Hope  for  men,  increased  by  sense  of  like- 
ness, iz8. 

Hosea,  as  illustration  of  inter-play  of  hu- 
man and  divine  relations,  68. 

Howells,  W.  D.,  his  A  Boy's  Town,  quoted, 
118;  referred  to,  123. 

Howison,  G.  H.,  on  the  person,  180,  208, 
230;  referred  to,  210. 

Humanity,  idea  of,  from  Christianity,  13. 

Ideal  view,  requires  the  facts  of  the  social 
consciousness,  29  ff,  32  ff. 

Imitation,  to  be  avoided,  172  ff. 

Immanence  of  God,  as  metaphysical  ground 
of  facts  -of  social  consciousness,  40  ff; 
Lotze  on,  40,  41;  limitations  in  concep- 
tion of,  217  ff. 

"Immortability,"  discussed,  124  ff. 

Immortality,  J.  S  Mill  on,  50;  Sully  on,  50; 
doctrine  of,  as  affected  by  sense  of  like- 
nessofmen,  124  ff;  references  on,  125. 

Indian  mysticism,  74. 

Israel,  significance  of  its  social  struggle, 
63 ;  ecstasy  among  its  prophets,  64. 

James,  William,  on  heredity,  37;  on  meta- 
physics, 40;  on  sense  of  reality,  72;  on 
nitrous-oxide-gas  intoxication,  74;  on 
the  world  as  a  confusion,  78;  reference 
to,  79,  122,  124,  126;  on  compensations, 
117;  on  varied  ideals,  128;  on  catching 
faith  and  courage,  147. 

Jesus,  Brooks  on  his  intellectual  life,  81; 
on  his  emotional  life.  84;  relation  to, 
necessarily  ethical,  89,  94,  96;  satisfies 
our  highest  claims  on  life,  94;  his  social 
emphases,  in  ff;  Brooks  on  his  interest 
in  the  uninteresting,  124;  the  great 
Christian  confession,  174  ff;  loyalty  to, 
best  assurance  for  doctrine,  175;  the  per- 
sonal in,  184  ff;  a  personal  revelation  of 
God,  184  ff;  the  moral  and  spiritual  in 
his  supremacy,  185  ff;  grounds  of  his 
supremacy,  188  r!;  among  founders  of  re- 
ligion, 189  ff;  his  sinlessness,  192  ff;  his 
impenitence,  193;  rises  to  highest  ideals, 


194.  ff;  shows  character  of  God,  195  ff; 
consciously  able  to  redeem  all  men,  196; 
transcendent  God-consciousness  and 
sense  of  mission,  197  ff;  calls  out  abso- 
lute trust,  198  ff;  in  him  God  certainly 
finds  us,  199  ff;  the  ideal  realized,  200  ff; 
his  double  uniqueness,  201  ff;  sense  of 
kinship  with,  and  reality  of,  205  ff;  di- 
vinity of,  as  related  to  Trinity,  224; 
reverence  for  person  in,  226  ff. 
Judgment,  according  to  light,  132  ff;  how 
God's  can  be  favorable,  153  ff  ;  reverence 
for  person  in,  237  ff  ;  according  to  law  of 
liberty,  238  ff. 

Kaftan,  J.,  referred  to,  86. 

Keim,  quoted,  52. 

King,   references  to    his   Reconstruction   in 

Theology,  16,  20,  23,  43,  67,  185,  187,  188, 

203,  20$,  212,  217,  218. 
Kipling,  R.,  on  the  value  of  the  common, 

119;  G.  F.  Genung  on,  245. 

Lanier,  S.,  quoted,  on  Christ,  201. 

Leibnitz,  referred  to,  172. 

Life,  the  richest,  ideal  conditions  of,  68  ff. 

Like-mindedness  of  men,  9  ff  ;  an  element 
of  social  consciousness,  9  ff,  47;  influ- 
ence on  theology,  115  ff;  summary  on, 
134;  seen  under  diverse  forms,  121  ff. 

Lotze,  reference  to,  13,  25,  31,  42,  213,214; 
on  passion  for  construing  everything, 
25,  26;  on  immanence  of  God,  40. 

Love,  sense  of,  20;  element  in  social  con- 
sciousness, 20,  51;  as  motive  in  creation, 


Man,  the  personal  in,  180  ff;  separateness 

from  God,  180  ff;  freedom  in,   181  ff;  a 

child  of  God,  183  ff. 
Matheson,  George,  on  sacrifice,  49. 
McConnell,  S.  D.,  objection  to  one  part  in 

his  argument  as  to  immortality,  124  ff. 
McCurdy,  on  the  significance  of  the  social 

struggle  in  Israel,  63. 
Metaphysical,   not   to    be   emphasized,   in 

conception  of  Christ,  185  ff;    how  to  be 

thought,   as  to  Christ,  203,  204;  in  doc- 

trine of  Trinity,  226. 


250 


INDEX 


Mill,  J.  S.,  on  immortality,  50. 

Moral  world,  prerequisites  of,  30  ff ;  sphere 
of  law,  30;  ethical  freedom,  30;  some 
power  of  accomplishment,  31;  members 
one  of  another,  32. 

Mistiness  in  mysticism,  73. 

Moral  initiative  in  men,  181  ff. 

Moral  law,  a  revelation  of  the  love  of  God, 
98. 

Mulford,  E.,  referred  to,  229. 

Munsterberg,  H.,  referred  to,  79;  refer- 
ence to  his  Psychology  and  Life,  79. 

Mutual  influence  of  men,  n  ff;  contribut- 
ing lines  of  thought,  n  ff;  threefold 
form  of  the  conviction,  13  ff;  as  element 
of  social  consciousness,  n  ff,  50;  influ- 
ence upon  theological  doctrine,  136  ff; 
for  good,  144  ff;  in  attainment  of  charac- 
ter, 145  ff;  in  personal  relation  to  God, 
i6off;  in  confession  of  faith,  167  ff. 

Mystical,  the  falsely,  opposition  of  the 
social  consciousness  to,  55  ff,  57  ff; 
Nash's  definition  of,  55,  56;  Herrmann's 
definition  of,  56,  57;  unethical,  58;  no 
real  personal  God,  58;  belittles  personal 
in  man,  59;  Paul's  rejection  of,  60,  61 ; 
leaves  historically  Christian.  62  ff. 

Mystical,  the  truly,  emphasized  by  the 
social  consciousness,  66  ff,  70  ff;  requires 
laws  of  a  deepening  friendship,  67;  re- 
quires ideal  conditions  of  the  richest  life, 
68;  protest  in  favor  of  whole  man,  78  ff; 
its  self-controlled  recognition  of  emotion, 
82  ff. 

Mysticism,  its  relation  to  the  social  con- 
sciousness, 55  ff;  false,  55  ff;  true,  66  ff, 
70  ff;  justifiable  and  unjustifiable  ele- 
ments in,  71  ff;  its  dangers: 

emotionalism,  71;  subjectivism,  72;  un- 
der-estimating historical,  72;  mistiness, 
73;  pantheism,  73  ff;  symbolism,  76. 
justifiable  elements  in,  summed  up,  77. 

Nash,  H.  S.,  on  ethical  basis  of  social  con- 
sciousness in  will  of  God,  45  ff;  his  defi- 
nition of  the  mystical,  55,  56;  referred 
to,  70;  on  doctrine  of  divine  personality, 
210;  on  the  supernatural,  217. 

Neo-Darwinian  school,  referred  to,  37. 


Neo-Platonic  mysticism,  55  ff,  74. 
New  World,  The,  reference  to,  12,  120. 
Neitzsche,  criticism  of,  by  Everett,  120. 

Obligation,  sense  of,  18  ff;  element  in  so- 
cial consciousness,  18,  51. 
Organism,  analogy  of,  23  ff;  value  of,  23; 
classical  expression  in  i  Cor.  12;  in- 
adequacy of,  for  social  consciousness, 
24  ff: 

comes  from  the  sub-personal  world,  24; 
access  to  reality  only  through  our- 
selves, 24;  mistaken  passion  for  con- 
struing everything,  25  ;  tested  by  defi- 
nition of  social  consciousness,  26  ff. 
Orr's  The  Christian  View  of  God  and  the 
World,  reference  to,  51. 

Pantheism,  tendency  to,  in  mysticism,  58,  74. 

Paul,  his  rejection  of  the  falsely  mystical, 
60,  61,  83. 

Paulsen,  on  key  to  reality,  25;  reference 
to,  30,  129;  on  necessity  of  faith,  46,  47. 

Peabody,  F.  G.,  referred  to,  65;  on  the  so- 
cial principles  of  Jesus,  in  ;  on  Christ's 
individualism,  229. 

Person,  value  of,  16  ff,  50;  influence  of 
sense  of  value  of,  on  theology,  179  ff; 
reverence  for,  characterizing  all  God's 
relation  to  men,  226  ff. 

Personal,  the,  recognition  of,  179  ff;  rec- 
ognition of,  in  man,  180  ff;  recognition 
of,  in  Christ,  184  ff:  recognition  of,  in 
God, 207  ff. 

"Personal  idealism,"  180,  181,  210. 

Personal  relation,  in  religion,  emphasized 
by  social  consciousness,  66  ff;  leads  to 
the  truly  mystical,  70  ff. 

Philo,  as  representative  of  mysticism,  55. 

Philoipphical  Review,  The,  reference  10,40. 

Philosophy,  as  contributing  to  sense  of  mu- 
tual influence,  12. 

Plato,  his  position  abandoned  by  mysticism, 
56. 

Plotinus,  as  representative  of  mysticism,  55. 

Prophets,  the,  their  standpoint  abandoned 
by  Philo,  55;  their  sense  of  the  signifi- 
cance of  the  social  struggle  in  Israel,  63; 
ecstasy  in,  64. 


INDEX 


251 


Propitiation,  ethical  meaning  of,  150  flf,  156. 

ifSff. 

Providence,  reverence  for  person  in,  232  ff. 
Psychology,   as    contributing    to    sense    of 

mutual  influence,  iz. 
Purpose  and  causality,  42,  4?, 

Race-connection,  not  prime  cause  of  unity 
of  men,  35  ff. 

Race,  real  unity  of,  136  ff;  its  solidarity, 
how  conceived,  16,  35,  3Q,  137- 

Ranke,  on  Christ,  192. 

Rational,  two  senses  of,  80. 

Reconstruction  in  Theology,  references  to, 
16,  20,  23,  43,  67,  185,  187.  188,  203,  205, 
212,  217,  218. 

Redemption,  as  viewed  from  point  of  view 
of  mutual'influence  for  good,  147  ff;  the 
cost  of,  150;  substitution  and  propitia- 
tion in,  150  ff. 

Religion,  and  theology,  6,  113;  influence 
of  the  social  consciousness  upon,  5  ?  ff. 
70  ff  ;  the  personal  relation  in,  empha- 
sized by  the  social  consciousness,  66 ff; 
its  thorough  ethicizing  demanded  by  so- 
cial consciousness,  86  ff ;  and  ethics,  87  ; 
a  supreme  factor  in  life,  189. 

Reverence  for  the  person  characterizing  all 
God's  relations  to  men,  226  ff ;  reflected 
in  Christ.  226  ff;  in  creation,  230  ff;  in 
providence,  232  ff;  in  the  personal  re- 
ligious life,  233  ff ;  in  the  judgment,  237  ff; 
in  the  future  life,  240  ff. 

Ritschl,  A.,  referred  to,  137. 

Royce,  Josiah,  reference  to,  12. 

Sabatier,  A.,  reference  to,  171. 

Sanday,  W.,  reference  to,  187. 

Schiller,  F.  C.  S.,  reference  to,  40. 

Science,  as  contributing  to  sense  of  mutual 
influence,  n. 

Scotist  position  as  to  God,  213. 

Separateness  from  God,  meaning  of,  180  ff. 

Sin,  sense  of,  deepened  by  social  con- 
sciousness, 139  ff;  Drummond  on,  140; 
lack  of  sense  of,  among  Greeks,  140  ; 
when  most  feared,  143. 

Smith,  G.  A.,  reference  to,  64. 

Social   consciousness,  definition,  9  ff;  ele- 


ments in,  9  ff;  meaning  of,  for  theology, 
5  ff ;  analogy  of  organism,  inadequate  for, 
24  ff ;  analogy,  tested,  26  ff ;  necessity  of 
its   facts   for   ideal   interests,  29  ff;    the 
question,  29;  else,  no  moral  world,  30  ff, 
32  ff;    ultimate  explanation  and  ground 
of,  35  ff;  metaphysical  ground,  35  ff: 
not   due   to   physical    race-connection, 
35  ff;   nor  primarily  to  heredity,  37  ff; 
nor  to  mystical  solidarity,  37  ff;  but  to 
immanence  of  God,  40  ff;  ethical  basis, 
44  ff;  supporting  will  of  God,  44;  Nash 
on,  45;  Paulsen  on,  46;  God's  sharing 
in   our   life,  48    ff;    consequent  trans- 
figuration of,  49  ff. 

its  influence  upon  religion,  53  ff;  opposed 
to  the  falsely  mystical,  57  ff;  emphasizes 
personal  relation  in  religion,  and  so  the 
truly  mystical,  66  ff  ;  demands  the  ethi- 
cizing of  religion,  86  ff;  needs  historical 
justification,  102  ff;  its  influence  upon 
theological  doctrine,  105  ff: 

general    results,    105    ff ;    influence   of 
like-mindedness    of    men,    115    ff  ;    of 
mutual   influence   of  men,    136   ff;    of 
sense  of  value  of  person,  179  ff. 
"Social  mind,"  real  meaning  of,  138;  Gid- 

dings  on,  138. 
"Social  Trinity,"  222  ff. 
Solidarity,  a  mystical,  not  to  be  pressed,  39. 
Solidarity  of  race,  often  falsely  conceived, 

16,  35,  39,  H7  ff- 
Stevenson,  R.  L.,  on  the  poetical  and  ideal 

in  men,  122;  referred  to,  123,  124. 
Subjectivism,  tendency  to,  in  mysticism,  72. 
Substitution,   ethical   meaning   of,    150  ff; 

158  ff. 

Sully,  J.,  on  immortality,  50. 
Supra-personal,  the,  in  God,  209. 
Symbolism,    strong   tendency    to,  in  mysti- 
cism, 76. 

Sympathy  with  men,  increased  by  sense  of 
likeness,  127. 

Tennyson,  his  self-hypnotism,  74. 

Theme  of  the  book,  i  ff. 

Theologian,  the,  an  interpreter,  5 ;  a  believer 

in  the  supremacy  of  spiritual  interests.  6; 

assumes  the  fact  of  religion,  6;  assumes  a 


INDEX 


personal  God,  7;  takes  point  of  view  of 
Christ,  7. 

Theologian's,  the,  point  of  view,  5  ff. 

Theology,  and  religion,  6,  113;  in  personal 
terms,  106  ff;  Fatherhood  of  God,  deter- 
mining principle  in,  109;  as  influenced 
by  social  consciousness,  105  ff;  general 
results  in,  105  ff;  influence  of  likeness  of 
men  on,  115  ff;  influence  of  mutual  influ- 
ence of  men  on,  136  ff;  influence  of  value 
of  person  on,  179  ff. 

Thomist  position  as  to  God,  zz?. 

Trinity,  doctrine  of,  zzz  ff;  biblical,  ZZ4, 
ZZ5. 

"Trinity,  Social,"  zzz  ff. 


Tritheism,  involved  in  a  real  social  trinity, 

zzz  ff. 

Triunity  of  God,  doctrine  of,  zzj  ff. 
"Truths,  eternal,"  God's  relation  to,  ziz  ff. 

Unchangeableness  of  God,  zi6  ff. 
Unconscious  Christianity,  130. 
Uniqueness,    a   double,  in   Christ,  201  ff; 
metaphysical,  20?,  204;  ethical,  204,  205 

Value  and  sacredness  of  person,  16  ff ;  sense 
of,  element  in  social  consciousness,  16, 
50. 

Weismann,  referred  to,  37. 


Reconstruction    in    Theology 

By  HENRY  CHURCHILL  KING 

Professor  of  Theology,  Oberlin  Theological  College 
CLOTH.     12MO.    $1.50 

FROM  THE  AUTHOR'S  PREFACE 

A  new  constructive  period  in  theology,  it  may  well  be 
believed,  is  at  hand.  This  book  has  been  written  with 
the  earnest  desire  and  hope  that  it  may  contribute  some- 
thing toward  the  forwarding  of  a  movement  already  going 
on — a  really  spiritual  reconstruction  of  theology  in  terms 
that  should  bring  it  home  to  our  own  day.  The  book 
aims,  first,  to  show  that  such  a  reconstruction  is  needed 
and  demanded,  because  of  the  changed  intellectual,  moral, 
and  spiritual  world  in  which  we  live;  and  then,  to  char- 
acterize briefly,  but  sufficiently,  this  new  world  of  our  day; 
and  finally,  to  indicate  the  influence  which  these  convic- 
tions of  our  time  ought  to  have  upon  theological  concep- 
tion and  statement,  especially  in  bringing  us  to  a  restate- 
ment of  theology  in  terms  of  personal  relation.  It  has 
been  a  constant  desire  of  the  writer  to  help  intelligent 
laymen,  as  well  as  theological  students  and  ministers,  to  a 
more  thorough  and  sympathetic  understanding  of  the  great 
convictions  and  scholarly  movements  of  the  day. 


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The  Evolution  of  Immortality 

By    S.    D.    MCCONNELL,    D.D.,    D.C.L. 

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"This  careful,  scholarly  study  of  the  history  of  Christian  faith 
in  Immortality  sets  forth  very  clearly  the  reason  why  the  old  church 
fathers  voiced  their  literal  beliefs  in  the  creeds  of  their  day,  putting 
into  them  the  expression  of  the  fullest  knowledge  of  their  time;  and 
why  we,  in  the  fullest  knowledge  of  our  time,  cannot  accept  as 
scientifically  true  much  that  we  repeat  sincerely,  viewing  it  as 
figurative  expression." — Boston  Daily  Advertiser. 

"An  important  contribution  to  the  growing  mass  of  literature 
recording  the  already  accomplished  reconciliation  between  science 
and  religion.  .  .  .  Immortality  is  considered  as  a  scientific 
fact,  not  as  an  article  of  faith  and  mystery,  by  Dr.  McConnell. 
His  chapter  on  this  subject  is  very  interesting.  Whether  or  not 
the  reader  is  ready  to  accept  all  of  this  author's  data  and  conclusions, 
his  book  is  an  important  expression  of  modern  thought  on  a  great 
question." — New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

"It  is  at  least  an  interesting  hypothesis  which  is  put  forward. 
.  The  author's  aim  is  not  so  much  to  demonstrate  as  to 
suggest  the  possible  validity  of  a  new  hypothesis,  to  indicate  some 
ground  for  thinking  that,  while  all  human  beings  are  not  immortal, 
some  of  them,  under  certain  conditions,  are  capable  of  a  life  beyond 
the  grave,  which,  however,  will  not  be  endless,  but  will  be  subject 
to  definite  conditions  of  its  own." — M.  W.  H.,  in  the  New  York  Sun. 


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